BOSTON    SCHQO:^    EDITION. 

*"'  '•    ;..-»   '•'    '•»  '-.. 

f    THE 

PRINCIPLES 

OF 

•MORAL   AND   POLITICAL 


BY  WILLIAM  PALEY,  D.  D. 


FOR    THE    EXAMINATION    OF    STUDENTS. 

JOHN  FROST, 

MAYHEW  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL,  BOSTON 


TWO  VOLUMES  IN  ONE. 
VOL.  I. 


BOSTON : 

:NJAMIN  B.  MUSSEY  &  co,, 

29   CORNHILL. 
1852. 


Entered  according  ;  in  the  yrer  1832. 

. 


TO  THE 

RIGHT  REVEREND 

EDMUND  LAW,  D.  D. 

LORD    BISHOP    OF    CARLISLE. 


MY  LORD, 

HAD  the  obligations  which  I  owe  to  your  Lordship's 
kindness  been  much  less  or  much  fewer  than  they  are,  had 
personal  gratitude  left  any  place  in  my  mind  for  deliberation 
or  for  inquiry,  in  selecting  a  name  which  every  reader  might 
confess  to  be  prefixed  with  propriety  to  a  work  that,  in  many 
of  its  parts,  bears  no  obscure  relation  to  the  general  princi- 
ples ot  natural  and  revealed  religion,  I  should  have  found 
myself  directed  by  many  considerations  to  that  of  the  Bish- 
op of  Carlisle.  A  long  life  spent  in  the  most  interesting  of 
all  human  pursuits — the  investigation  of  moral  and  religious 
truth,  in  constant  and  unwearied  endeavours  to  advance  the 
discovery,  communication,  and  success,  of  both  ;  a  life  so 
occupied,  and  arrived  at  that  period  which  renders  every 
life  venerable,  commands  respect  by  a  title  which  no  virtuous 
mind  will  dispute ;  which  no  mind  sensible  of  the  importance 
of  these  studies  to  the  supreme  concernments  of  mankind 
will  not  rejoice  to  see  acknowledged.  Whatever  difference, 
or  whatever  opposition,  some  who  peruse  your  Lordship's 
writings  may  perceive  between  your  conclusions  and  their 
own,  the  good  and  wise  of  all  persuasions  will  revere  that 
industry  which  has  for  its  object  the  illustration  or  defence 
of  our  common  Christianity  Your  Lordship's  researches 


IV  DEDICATION. 

have  never  lost  sight  of  one  purpose,  namely,  to  recover 
the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  from  beneath  that  load  of  un- 
authorized additions  which  the  ignorance  of  some  ages,  and 
the  learning  of  others,  the  superstition  of  weak,  and  the  craft 
of  designing  men,  have  (unhappily  for  its  interest)  heaped 
upon  it.  And  this  purpose,  I  am  convinced,  was  dictated 
by  the  purest  motive  ;  by  a  firm  and,  I  think,  a  just  opinion, 
that  whatever  renders  religion  more  rational  renders  it  more 
credible  ;  that  he  who,  by  a  diligent  and  faithful  examina- 
tion of  the  original  records,  dismisses  from  the  system  one  ar- 
ticle which  contradicts  the  apprehension,  the  experience,  or 
the  reasoning  of  mankind,  does  more  towards  recommending 
the  belief,  and,  with  the  belief,  the  influence  of  Christianity, 
to  the  understandings  and  consciences  of  serious  inquirers, 
and  througli  them  to  universal  reception  and  authority,  than 
can  be  effected  by  a  thousand  contenders  for  creeds  and  or- 
dinances of  human  establishment. 

When  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  had  taken  pos- 
session of  the  Christian  world,  it  was  not  without  the  indus 
try  of  learned  men  that  it  came  at  length  to  be  discovered 
that  no  such  doctrine  was  contained  in  the  New  Testament 
But  had  those  excellent  persons  done  nothing  more  by  then 
discovery  than  abolished  an  innocent  superstition,  or  changed 
some  directions  in  the  ceremonial  of  public  worship,  they 
had  merited  little  of  that  veneration  with  which  the  gratitude 
of  Protestant  Churches  remembers  their  services.  What 
they  did  for  mankind  was  this  :  they  exonerated  Christianity 
of  a  weight  which  sunk  it.  If  indolence  or  timidity  had 
checked  these  exertions,  or  suppressed  the  fruit  and  publi- 
cation of  these  inquiries,  is  it  too  much  to  affirm,  that  infi- 
delity would  at  this  day  have  been  universal  1 

I  do  not  mean,  my  Lord,  by  the  mention  of  this  example 
to  insinuate,  that  any  popular  opinion  which  your  Lordship 
may  have  encountered  ought  to  be  compared  with  Tran- 
substantiation, or  that  the  assurance  with  which  we  reject 
that  extravagant  absurdity  is  attainable  in  the  controversies 
in  which  your  Lordship  has  been  engaged  ;  but  I  mean,  by 


DEDICATION.  V 

calling  to  mind  those  great  reformers  of  the  public  faith,  to 
observe,  or  rather  to  express  my  own  persuasion,  that  to 
restore  the  purity  is  most  effectually  to  promote  the  progress 
of  Christianity  ;  and  that  the  same  virtuous  motive,  which 
hath  sanctified  their  labours,  suggested  yours.  At  a  time 
when  some  men  appear  not  to  perceive  any  good,  and  others 
to  suspect  an  evil  tendency,  in  that  spirit  of  examination 
and  research  which  is  gone  forth  in  Christian  countries,  this 
testimony  is  become  due,  not  only  to  the  probity  of  your 
Lordship's  views,  but  to  the  general  cause  of  intellectual  and 
religious  liberty. 

That  your  Lordship's  life  may  be  prolonged  in  health 
and  honour ;  that  it  may  continue  to  afford  an  instructive 
proof,  how  serene  and  easy  old  age  can  be  made  by  the 
memory  of  important  and  well  intended  labours,  by  the  pos» 
session  of  public  and  deserved  esteem,  by  the  presence  of 
many  grateful  relatives  ;  above  all,  by  the  resources  of  re- 
ligion, by  an  unshaken  confidence  in  the  designs  of  a  "  faith- 
ful Creator,"  and  a  settled  trust  in  the  truth  and  in  the 
promises  of  Christianity,  is  the  fervent  prayer  of, 

MY  LORD, 
Your  Lordship's  dutiful, 

Most  obliged, 
And  most  devoted  servant, 

WILLIAM  PALEY. 
Carlisle,  Feb.  10, 1785. 


CONTENTS, 

BOOK  I. 

PRELIMINARY    CONSIDERATIONS. 
Chap.  P»ge 

1.  DEFINITION  and  Use  of  Science        -        -  21 

2.  The  Law  of  Honour  -----  21 

3.  The  Law  of  the  Land         -        -        -        -  22 

4.  The  Scriptures   -  ....  JW*-^ 

5.  The  Moral  Sense        -        -        -        -        -  26 

6.  Human  Happiness      -        -        -        -        •  32 

7.  Virtue        ----.. 


BOOK  II. 

MORAL    OBLIGATION. 

1.  The  Question,  Why  am  I  obliged  to  keep  my 

Word?  considered  -        -        -        -    52 

2.  What  we  mean  when  we  say  a  Man  is  obliged 

to  do  a  thing  ------  63 

8.  The  Question,  Why  am  I  obliged  to  keep  my 

Word?  resumed  -  -  -  -  -  54 

4.  The  Will  of  God 66 


V  CONTENTS. 

Chap.  Pag, 

5.  The  Divine  Benevolence      -        -        -        -     58 
C^tftility        --.....61 

7.  The  necessity  of  General  Rules  -        -        -     63 

8.  The  Consideration  of  General  Consequences 

pursued  -.-....65 

9.  Of  Right 68 

10.  The  Division  of  Rights        -        -        -        -    69 
11    The  General  Rights  of  Mankind-        -        -    74 


BOOK  III. 

RELATIVE    DUTIES. 

PART  I. 

OF  RELTIVE  DUTIES  WHICH  ARE  DETERMINATE. 

1.  Of  Property 80 

2.  The  Use  of  the  Institution  of  Property          -     81 

3.  The  History  of  Property      -         -         -         -     88 

4.  In  what  the  Right  of  Property  is  founded     -     85 

5.  Promises    -----..90 

6.  Contracts  -         -         -         -         -         -         -101 

7.  Contracts  of  Sale         -         -         -         -         -  101 

8.  Contracts  of  Hazard   -----  105 

9.  Contracts  of  Lending  of  inconsumable  Pro- 

perty     -        -        -  ...  106 

10.  Contracts  concerning  the  Lending  of  Money  -  108 

11.  Contracts  of  Labour — Service      -         -         -  113 

12.  Contracts  of  Labour — Commissions      -         -  116 

13.  Contracts  of  Labour — Partnership        -  119 

14.  Contracts  of  Labour — Offices       -        *  120 


CONTENTS.  IX 

Chap  Pag« 

15.  Lies -  128 

16.  Oaths 126 

17.  Oaths  in  Evidence       -        -        -        -        -  132 

18.  Oath  of  Allegiance 133 

19.  Oath  against  Bribery  in  the  Election  of  Mem- 

bers of  Parliament  -        -        -        -        -  186 

20.  Oath  against  Simony  -----  137 

21.  Oaths  to  observe  Local  Statutes-        -        -  139 

22.  Subscription  to  Articles  of  Religion      -        -  141 

23.  Wills 142 

PART  II. 

OF     RELATIVE    DUTIES    WHICH    ARE     INDETERMI- 
NATE,    AND  OF  THE  CRIMES  OPPOSITE  TO  THESE. 

1.  Charity 148 

2.  Charity — The  Treatment  of  our  Domestics 

and  Dependents     -----  149 

3.  Slavery      -------  150 

4.  Charity — Professional  Assistance          -         -  153 

5.  Charity — Pecuniary  Bounty          -  155 

6.  Resentment        -         -         -         -         -         -164 

7.  Anger 164 

8.  Revenge    -------  166 

.   9.  Duelling 170 

10.  Litigation  -         -         -        -        -        -         -173 

11.  Gratitude  ....  -  176 

12.  Slander      -  .  .  177 


CONTENTS. 


PART  III. 

Dr  RELATIVE  DUTIES  WHICH  RESULT  FROM  TH« 
CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  SEXES,  AND  OP  TH« 
CRIMES  OPPOSED  TO  THESE. 

1.  Of  the  Public  Use  of  Marriage  Institutions  -  180 

2.  Fornication         -----.  181 
&.  Seduction  -         -         -         -  v-  186 

4.  Adultery 188 

6.  Incest         -------  192 

6.  Polygamy  -------  194 

7.  Divorce      ------  198 

8.  Marriage 205 

9.  Of  the  Duty  of  Parents       -        -        -        -  208 

10.  The  Rights  of  Parents         -         -         -         -  221 

11.  The  Duty  of  Children  -        -  228 


PREFACE. 


IN  the  treatises  that  I  have  met  with  upon  the  subject  of 
morals,  I  appear  to  myself  to  have  remarked  the  following 
imperfections ; — either  that  the  principle  was  erroneous, 
or  that  it  was  indistinctly  explained,  or  that  the  rules 
deduced  from  it  were  not  sufficiently  adapted  to  real  life 
and  to  actual  situations.  The  writings  of  Grotius,  and  the 
larger  work  of  Puffendorff,  are  of  too  forensic  a  cast,  too 
much  mixed  up  with  the  civil  law  and  with  the  jurispru- 
dence of  Germany,  to  answer  precisely  the  design  of  a  sys- 
tem of  ethics, — the  direction  of  private  consciences  in  the 
general  conduct  of  human  life.  Perhaps,  indeed,  they  are 
not  to  be  regarded  as  institutes  of  morality  calculated  to  in- 
struct an  individual  in  his  duty,  so  much  as  a  species  of  law 
books  and  law  authorities,  suited  to  the  practice  of  those 
courts  of  justice,  whose  decisions  are  regulated  by  general 
principles  of  natural  equity,  in  conjunction  with  the  max- 
ims of  the  Roman  code  ;  of  which  kind,  I  understand,  there 
are  many  upon  the  Continent.  To  which  may  be  added, 
concerning  both  these  authors,  that  they  are  more  occupied 
in  describing  the  rights  and  usages  of  independent  communi- 
ties than  is  necossary  in  a  work  which  professes  not  to  ad- 
just the  correspondence  of  nations,  but  to  delineate  the  of- 
fices of  domestic  life.  The  profusion  also  of  classical  quo- 
tations with  which  many  of  their  pages  abound,  seems  to 
me  a  fault  from  which  it  will  not  be  easy  to  excuse  them. 
If  these  extracts  be  intended  as  decorations  of  style,  the 
composition  is  overloaded  with  ornaments  of  one  kind.  To 
any  thing  more  than  ornament  they  can  make  no  cla,im. 
To  propose  them  as  serious  arguments,  gravely  to  attempt 
to  establish  or  fortify  a  moral  duty  by  the  testimony  of  a 
Creek  or  Roman  poet,  is  to  trifle  wiih  the  attention  of  the 


reader,  or  rather  to  take  it  off  from  all  just  principles  of  rea- 
soning in  morals. 

Of  our  ov  n  writers  in  this  branch  of  philosophy,  I  find 
none  that  1  think  perfectly  free  from  the  three  objections 
which  I  have  stated.  There  is  likewise  a  fourth  property 
observable  almost  in  all  of  them,  namely^  that  they  divide 
too  much  the  law  of  Nature  from  the  precepts  of  Revelation  ; 
some  authors  industriously  declining  the  mention  of  Scripture 
authorities,  as  belonging  to  a  different  province ;  and  others 
reserving  them  for  a  separate  volume  :  which  appears  to  me 
much  the  same  defect,  as  if  a  commentator  on  the  laws  of 
England  should  content  himself  with  stating  upon  each 
head  the  common  law  of  the  land,  without  taking  any  notice 
of  acts  of  parliament ;  or  should  choose  to  give  his  readers 
the  common  law  in  one  book,  and  the  statute  law  in  another. 
"  When  the  obligations  of  morality  are  taught,"  says  a  pi- 
ous and  celebrated  writer,  "  let  the  sanctions  of  Christianity 
never  be  forgotten  :  by  which  it  will  be  shown  that  they  give 
strength  and  lustre  to  each  other  :  religion  will  appear  to  be 
the  voice  of  reason,  and  morality  will  be  the  will  of  God."* 

The  manner  also  which  modern  writers  have  treated  of 
subjects  of  morality  is,  in  my  judgment,  liable  to  much 
exception.  It  has  become  of  late  a  fashion  to  deliver  moral 
institutes  in  strings  or  series  of  detached  propositions,  with- 
out subjoining  a  continued  argument  or  regular  dissertation 
to  any  of  them.  This  sententious  apophthegmatizing  style, 
by  crowding  propositions  and  paragraphs  too  fast  upon  the 
mind,  and  by  carrying  the  eye  of  the  reader  from  subject  to 
subject  in  too  quick  a  succession,  gains  not  a  sufficient  hold 
upon  the  attention,  to  leave  either  the  memory  furnished  or 
the  understanding  satisfied.  However  useful  a  syllabus  of 
topics  or  a  series  of  propositions  may  be  in  the  hands  of  a 
lecturer,  or  as  a  guide  to  a  student,  who  is  supposed  to  con- 
sult other  books,  or  to  institute  upon  each  subject  research- 
es of  his  own,  the  method  is  by  no  means  convenient  for  ordi- 

*  Preface  to  "  The  Preceptor,"  by  Dr.  Jotir.sim 


PREFACE.  Xiii 

nary  readers ;  because  few  readers  are  sucn  thinkers  as  to 
want  only  a  hint  to  set  their  thoughts  at  work  upon  ;  or  such 
as  will  pause  and  tarry  at  every  proposition,  till  they  have 
traced  ouf  its  dependency,  proof,  relation,  and  consequences, 
before  they  permit  themselves  to  step  on  to  another.  A  res- 
pectable writer  of  this  class*  has  comprised  his  doctrine  of 
slavery  in  the  three  following  propositions  : — 

"  No  one  is  born  a  slave  ;  because  every  one  is  born  with 
all  his  original  rights. 

"  No  one  can  become  a  slave  ;  because  no  one  from  being 
a  person  can,  in  the  language  of  the  Roman  law,  become  a 
thing,  or  subject  of  property. 

"  The  supposed  property  of  the  master  in  the  slave,  there- 
fore, is  matter  of  usurpation,  not  of  right." 

It  maybe  possible  to  deduce,  from  these  few  adages,  such 
a  theory  of  the  primitive  rights  of  human  nature  as  will  evince 
the  illegality  of  slavery  :  but  surely  an  author  requires  too 
much  of  his  reader,  when  he  expects  him  to  make  these  de- 
ductions for  himself;  or  to  supply,  perhaps  from  some  re- 
mote chapter  of  the  same  treatise,  the  several  proofs  and  ex- 
planations which  are  necessary  to  render  the  meaning  and 
truth  of  these  assertions  intelligible. 

There  is  a  fault,  the  opposite  of  this,  which  some  moralists 
who  have  adopted  a  different  and,  I  think,  a  better  plan  of 
composition,  have  not  always  been  careful  to  avoid  ;  namely, 
the  dwelling  upon  verbal  and  elementary  distinctions,  with  a 
labour  and  prolixity  proportioned  much  more  to  the  subtlety 
of  the  question,  than  to  its  value  and  importance  in  the  pro- 
secution of  the  subject.  A  writer  upon  the  law  of  nature,f 
whose  explications  in  every  part  of  philosophy,  though  al- 
ways diffuse,  are  often  very  successful,  has  employed  three 
long  sections  in  endeavouring  to  prove  that  "  permissions 
are  not  laws."  The  discussion  of  this  controversy,  how- 
ever essential  it  might  be  to  dialectic  precision,  was  certain- 


*  Dr.  Ferguson,  author  of  "  Institutes  of  Moral  Philosophy."     1767. 
•j  Dr.  Rutherforlh,  author  of  "  Institutes  of  Natural  Law." 
VOL.  1.  2 


ly  not  necessary  to  the  pogress  of  a  work  designed  to  de- 
scribe the  duties  and  obligations  of  civil  life.  The  reader 
becomes  impatient  when  he  is  detained  by  disquisitions  which 
have  no  other  object  than  the  settling  of  terms  and  phrases; 
and,  what  is  worse,  they  for  whose  use  such  books  are  chief- 
ly intended  will  not  be  persuaded  to  read  them  at  all. 

I  am  led  to  propose  these  strictures,  not  by  any  propensity 
to  depreciate  the  labours  of  my  predecessors, much  less  to 
invite  a  comparison  between  the  merits  of  their'performances 
and  my  own  ;  but  solely  by  the  consideration,  that  when  a 
writer  offers  a  book  to  the  public,  upon  a  subject  on  which 
the  public  are  already  in  possession  of  many  others,  he  is 
bound  by  a  kind  of  literary  justice  to  inform  his  readers,  dis- 
tinctly and  specifically,  what  it  is  he  professes  to  supply,  and 
what  he  expects  to  improve.  The  imperfections  above  enu- 
merated are  those  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  avoid  or 
remedy.  Of  the  execution  the  reader  must  judge  ;  but  this 
was  the  design. 

Concerning  the  principle  of  morals  it  would  be  premature 
to  speak  :  but  concerning  the  manner  of  unfolding  and  ex- 
plaining that  principle,  I  have  somewhat  which  I  wish  to  be 
remarked.  An  experience  of  nine  years  in  the  office  of  a 
public  tutor  in  one  of  the  universities,  and  in  that  depaitment 
of  education  to  which  these  chapters  relate,  afforded  me  fre- 
quent occasion  to  observe  that,  in  discoursing  to  young  minds 
upon  topics  of  morality,  it  required  much  more  pains  to  make 
them  perceive  the  difficulty  than  to  understand  the  solution  : 
that,  unless  the  subject  was  so  drawn  up  to  a  poiHt,  as  to 
exhibit  the  full  force  of  an  objection,  or  the  exact  place  of  a 
doubt,  before  any  explanation  was  entered  upon, — in  other 
words,  unless  some  curiosity  was  excited  before  it  was  at- 
tempted to  be  satisfied,  the  labour  of  the  teacher  was  lost. 
When  information  was  not  desired,  it  was  seldom,  I  found, 
retained.  I  have  made  this  observation  my  guide  in  the  fol- 
lowing work  :  that  is,  upon  each  occasion  I  have  endeavour- 
ed, before  I  suffered  myself  to  proceed  in  the  disquisition, 
to  put  the  reader  in  complete  possession  of  the  question ; 


PREFACE.  XV 

and  to  do  it  in  the  way  that  1  thought  most  likely  to  stir  up 
his  own  doubts  and  solicitude  about  it. 

In  pursuing  the  principle  of  morals  through  the  detail  of 
cases  to  which  it  is  applicable,  I  have  had  in  view  to  accom- 
modate both  the  choice  of  the  subjects  and  the  manner  of 
handling  them  to  the  situations  which  arise  in  the  life  of  an 
inhabitant  of  this  country  in  these  times.  This  is  the  thing 
that  I  think  to  be  principally  wanting  in  former  treatises ; 
and  perhaps  the  chief  advantage  whicli  will  be  found  in  mine. 
I  have  examined  no  doubts,  I  have  discussed  no  obscurities, 
I  have  encountered  no  errors,  I  have  adverted  to  no  contro- 
versies, but  what  I  have  seen  actually  to  exist.  If  some  of 
the  questions  treated  of  appear  to  a  more  instructed  reader 
minute  or  puerile,  I  desire  such  reader  to  be  assured,  that  I 
have  found  them  occasions  of  difficulty  to  young  minds  ;  and 
what  I  have  observed  in  young  minds,  I  should  expect  to 
meet  with  in  all  who  approach  these  subjects  for  the  first 
time.  Upon  each  article  of  human  duty,  I  have  combined 
with  the  conclusions  of  reason  the  declarations  of  Scripture, 
when  they  are  to  be  had,  as  of  coordinate  authority,  and  as 
both  terminating  in  the  same  sanctions. 

In  the  manner  of  the  work,  I  have  endeavoured  so  to  at.- 
temper  the  opposite  plans  above  animadverted  upon,  as  that 
the  reader  may  not  accuse  me,  either  of  too  much  haste  or 
too  much  delay.  I  have  bestowed  upon  each  subject  enough 
of  dissertation  to  give  a  body  and  substance  to  the  chapter 
in  which  it  is  treated  of,  as  well  as  coherence  and  perspicuir- 
ty  :  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  seldom,  I  hope,  exercised  the 
patience  of  the  reader  by  the  length  arid  prolixity  of  my  es- 
says, or  disappointed  that  patience  at  last  by  the  tenuity  and 
unimportance  of  the  conclusion. 

There  are  two  particulars  in  the  following  work,  for  which 
it  may  be  thought  necessary  that  I  should  offer  some  excuse. 
The  first  of  which  is,  that  I  have  scarcely  ever  referred  to 
any  other  book  ;  or  mentioned  the  name  of  the  author  whose 
thoughts,  and  sometimes,  possibly,  whose  very  expressions, 
I  have  adopted.  My  method  of  writing  has  constantly  been 
this ;  to  extract  wkat  I  could  from  my  own  stores  and  my 


XVI  PREFACE. 

own  reflections  in  the  first  place ;  to  put  down  that,  and  af- 
terwards to  consult  upon  each  subject  such  readings  as  fell 
in  my  way  :  which  order,  1  am  convinced,  is  the  only  one 
whereby  any  person  can  keep  his  thoughts  from  sliding  into 
other  men's  trains.  The  effect  of  such  a  plan  upon  the  pro- 
duction itself  will  be,  that,  whilst  some  parts  in  matter  or 
manner  may  be  new,  others  will  be  little  else  than  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  old.  I  make  no  pretensions  to  perfect  originality  : 
I  claim  to  be  something  more  than  a  mere  compiler.  Much, 
no  doubt,  is  borrowed ;  but  the  fact  is,  that  the  notes  for  this 
work  having  been  prepared  for  some  years,  and  such  things 
having  been  from  time  to  time  inserted  in  them  as  appear- 
ed to  me  worth  preserving,  and  such  insertions  made  com- 
monly without  the  name  of  the  author  from  whom  they  were 
taken,  I  should,  at  this  time,  have  found  a  difficulty  in  re- 
covering those  names  with  sufficient  exactness  to  be  able  to 
render  to  every  man  his  own.  Nor,  to  speak  the  truth,  did 
it  appear  to  me  worth  while  to  repeat  the  search  merely  for 
this  purpose.  When  authorities  are  relied  upon,  names 
must  be  produced  ;  when  a  discovery  has  been  made  in  sci- 
ence, it  may  be  unjust  to  borrow  the  invention  without  ac- 
knowledging the  author.  But  in  an  argumentative  treatise, 
and  upon  a  subject  which  allows  no  place  for  discovery  or 
invention,  properly  so  called;  and  in  which  all  that  can  be- 
long to  a  writer  is  his  mode  of  reasoning  or  his  judgment  of 
probabilities ;  I  should  have  thought  it  superfluous,  had  it 
been  easier  to  me  than  it  was,  to  have  interrupted  my  text, 
or  crowded  my  margin,  with  references  to  every  author 
whose  sentiments  I  have  made  use  of.  There  is,  however, 
one  work  to  which  I  owe  so  much  that  it  would  be  ungrate* 
.rul  not  to  confess  the  obligation :  I  mean  the  writings  of  the 
late  Abraham  Tucker,  Esq.  part  of  which  were  published 
by  himself,  and  the  remainder  since  his  death,  under  the 
title  of  "  The  Light  of  Nature  pursued,  by  Edward  Search, 
Esq."  I  have  found  in  this  writer  more  original  thinking 
and  observation,  upon  the  several  subjects  that  he  has  taken 
in  hand,  than  in  any  other,  not  to  say,  than  in  all  others  put 
together.  His  talent  also  for  illustration  is  unrivalled.  But 


PREFACE.  XVfl 

his  thoughts  are  diffused  through  a  long,  various,  and  irregu- 
lar work.  I  shall  account  it  no  mean  praise,  if  I  have  been 
sometimes  able  to  dispose  into  method,  to  collect  into  heads 
and  articles,  or  to  exhibit  in  more  compact  and  tangible 
masses,  what,  in  that  otherwise  excellent  performance,  is 
spread  over  too  much  surface. 

The  next  circumstance,  for  which  some  apology  may  be 
eipected,  is  the  joining  of  moral  and  political  philosophy  to- 
gether, or  the  addition  of  a  book  of  politics  to  a  system  of 
ethics.  Against  this  objection,  if  it  be  made  one,  I  might 
defend  myself  by  the  example  of  many  approved  writers,  who 
have  treated  de  offieiis  hominis  et  civis,  or,  as  some  choose 
to  express  it,  "  of  the  rights  and  obligations  of  man,  in  his 
individual  and  social  capacity,"  in  the  same  book.  I  might 
allege  also,  that  the  part  a  member  of  the  commonwealth 
shall  take  in  political  contentions,  the  vote  he  shall  give,  the 
counsels  he  shall  approve,  the  support  he  shall  afford,  or  the 
opposition  he  shall  make,  to  any  system  of  public  measures, 
— is  as  much  a  question  of  personal  duty,  as  much  con- 
cerns the  conscience  of  the  individual  who  deliberates,  as  the 
determination  of  any  doubt  which  relates  to  the  conduct  of 
private  life;  that  consequently  political  philosophy  is,  pro- 
perly speaking,  a  continuation  of  moral  philosophy;  or  rather 
indeed  a  part  of  it,  supposing  moral  philosophy  to  have  for 
its  aim  the  information  of  the  human  conscience  in  every 
deliberation  that  is  likely  to  come  before  it.  I  might  avail 
myself  of  these  excuses,  if  I  wanted  them;  but  the  vindica- 
tion upon  which  I  rely  is  the  following  :  In  stating  the  prin- 
ciple of  morals,  the  reader  will  observe  that  I  have  employ- 
ed some  industry  in  explaining  the  theory,  and  showing  the 
necessity  of  general  rules;  without  the  full  and  constant 
consideration  of  which,  I  am  persuaded  that  no  system  of 
moral  philosophy  can  be  satisfactory  or  consistent.  This 
foundation  being  laid,  or  rather  this  habit  being  formed,  the 
discussion  of  political  subjects,  to  which,  more  than  to  al- 
nost  any  other,  general  rules  are  applicable,  became  clear 
and  easy.  Whereas  had  these  topics  been  assigned  to  a 
distinct  work,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  have  repeated 

VOL.    1.  2  * 


XVin  PREFACE. 

the  same  rudiments,  to  have  established  over  again  the  same 
principles,  as  those  which  we  have  already  exemplified  and 
rendered  familiar  to  the  reader,  in  the  former  parts  of  this. 
In  a  word,  if  there  appear  to  any  one  too  great  a  diversity, 
or  too  wide  a  distance,  between  the  subjects  treated  of  in  the 
course  of  the  present  volume,  let  him  be  reminded,  that 
the  doctrine  of  general  rules  pervades  and  connects  the 
whole. 

It  may  not  be  improper,  however,  to  admonish  the  reader, 
that,  under  the  name  of  politics,  he  is  not  to  look  for  those 
occasional  controversies,  which  the  occurrences  of  the  present 
day,  or  any  temporary  situation  of  public  affairs,  may  ex- 
cite ;  and  most  of  which,  if  not  beneath  the  dignity,  it  is  be- 
side the  purpose,  of  a  philosophical  institution  to  advert  to. 
He  will  perceive,  that  the  several  disquisitions  are  framed 
with  a  reference  to  the  condition  of  this  country,  and  of  this 
government ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  to  belong  to  the  design  of 
a  work  like  the  following,  not  so  much  to  discuss  each  al- 
tercated point  with  the  particularity  of  a  political  pamphlet 
upon  the  subject,  as  to  deliver  those  universal  principles,  and 
to  exhibit  that  mode  and  train  of  reasoning  in  politics,  by  the 
due  application  of  which  every  man  might  be  enabled  to  at- 
tain to  just  conclusions  of  his  own.  I  am  not  ignorant  of 
an  objection  that  has  been  advanced  against  all  abstract 
speculations  concerning  the  origin,  principle,  or  limitation 
of  civil  authority ;  namely,  that  such  speculations  possess 
little  or  no  influence  upon  the  conduct  either  of  the  state  or 
of  the  subject,  of  the  governors  or  the  governed  ;  nor  are 
attended  with  any  useful  donsequences  to  either;  that  in 
times  of  tranquillity  they  are  not  wanted ;  in  times  of  con 
fusion  they  are  never  heard.  This  representation,  however, 
in  my  opinion,  is  not  just.  Times  of  tumult,  it  is  true,  are 
not  the  times  to  learn  ;  but  the  choice  which  men  make  of 
their  side  and  party,  in  the  most  critical  occasions  of  the 
commonwealth,  may  nevertheless  depend  upon  the  lessons 
they  have  received,  the  books  they  have  read,  and  the  opin- 
ions they  have  imbibed,  in  seasons  of  leisure  and  quietness. 
Some  judicious  persons,  who  were  present  at  Geneva  during 


PREFACE.  JOS 

the  troubles  which  lately  convulsed  that  city,  thought  they 
perceived,  in  the  contentions  there  carrying  on,  the  opera- 
tion of  that  political  theory,  which  the  writings  of  Rousseau, 
and  the  unbounded  esteem  in  which  these  writings  are  hoi- 
den  by  his  countrymen,  had  diffused  amongst  the  people. 
Throughout  the  political  disputes  that  have  within  these  few 
years  taken  place  in  Great  Britain,  in  her  sister  kingdom, 
and  in  her  foreign  dependencies,  it  was  impossible  not  to  ob- 
serve, in  the  language  of  party,  in  the  resolutions  of  public 
meetings,  in  debate,  in  conversation,  in  the  general  strain  of 
those  fugitive  and  diurnal  addresses  to  the  public  which  such 
occasions  call  forth,  the  prevalency  of  those  ideas  of  civil 
authority  which  are  displayed  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Locke 
The  credit  of  that  great  name,  the  courage  and  liberality  of 
his  principles,  the  skill  and  clearness  with  which  his  argu- 
ments are  proposed,  no  less  than  the  weight  of  the  arguments 
themselves, have  given  a  reputation  and  currency  to  his  opin- 
ions, of  which  I  am  persuaded,  in  any  unsettled  state  of 
public  affairs,  the  influence  would  be  felt.  As  this  is  not  a 
place  for  examining  the  truth  or  tendency  of  these  doctrines, 
I  would  not  be  understood,  by  what  I  have  said,  to  express 
any  judgment  concerning  either.  I  mean  only  to  remark, 
that  such  doctrines  are  not  without  effect ;  and  that  it  is  of 
practical  importance  to  have  the  principles  from  which  the 
obligations  of  social  union,  and  the  extent  of  civil  obedience, 
are  derived,  rightly  explained,  and  well  understood.  Indeed, 
as  far  as  I  have  observed,  in  political,  beyond  all  other  sub- 
jects, where  men  are  without  some  fundamental  and  scien- 
tific principles  to  resort  to,  they  are  liable  to  have  their  un- 
derstandings played  upon  by  cant  phrases  and  unmeaning 
terms,  in  which  every  party  in  every  country  possesses  a 
vocabulary.  We  appear  astonished  when  we  see  the  multi- 
tude led  away  by  sounds ;  but  we  should  remember  that,  if 
sounds  work  miracles,  it  is  always  upon  ignorance.  The 
influence  of  names  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the  want  of 
knowledge. 

These  are  the  observations  with  which  I  have  judged  it 
expedient  to  prepare  the  attention  of  my  reader.     Concern- 


XX  PREFACE. 

ing  the  personal  motives  which  engaged  me  in  the  following 
attempt,  it  is  not  necessary  that  I  say  much  :  the  nature  of 
my  academical  situation,  a  great  deal  of  leisure  since  my 
retirement  from  it,  the  recommendation  of  an  honoured  and 
excellent  friend,  the  authority  of  the  venerable  prelate  to  whom 
these  labours  are  inscribed,  the  not  perceiving  in  what  way  I 
could  employ  my  time  or  talents  better,  and  my  disapproba- 
tion, in  literary  men,  of  that  fastidious  indolence  which  sits 
still  because  it  disdains  to  do  little,  were  the  considerations 
that  directed  my  thoughts  to  this  design.  Nor  have  I  repent- 
ed of  the  undertaking.  Whatever  be  the  fate  or  reception 
of  this  work,  it  owes  its  author  nothing.  In  sickness  and  in 
health  I  have  found  in  it  that  which  can  alone  alleviate 
the  one  or  give  enjoyment  to  the  other, — occupation  and 
engagement. 


BOOK   I. 

PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

DEFINITION  AND  USE    OF  THE  SCIENCE, 

MORAL  Philosophy,  Morality,  Ethics,  Casuistry, 
Natural  Law,  mean  all  the  same  thing;  namely,  That 
Science  which  teaches  men  their  duty,  and  the 
reasons  of  it. 

The  use  of  such  a  study  depends  upon  this,  that, 
without  it,  the  rules  of  life,  by  which  men  are  ordina- 
rily governed,  oftentimes  mislead  them,  through  a  de- 
fect either  in  the  rule  or  in  the  application. 

These  rules  are,  the  Law  of  Honour,  the  Law  of 
the  Land,  and  the  Scriptures. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE    LAW    OF  HONOUR. 


THE  Law  of  Honour  is  a  system  of  rules  construct- 
ed by  people  of  fashion,  and  calculated  to  facilitate 
their  intercourse  with  one  another;  and  for  no  other 
purpose. 


22  LAW  OF  THE  LAND. 

Consequently,  nothing  is  adverted  to  by  the  Law 
of  Honour,  but  what  tends  to  incommode  this  inter 
course. 

Hence  this  law  only  prescribes  and  regulates  the 
duties  betwixt  equals;  omitting  such  as  relate  to  the 
Supreme  Being,  as  well  as  those  which  we  owe  to  our 
inferiors. 

For  which  reason,  profaneness,  neglect  of  public 
worship  or  private  devotion,  cruelty  to  servants,  rigo- 
rous treatment  of  tenants  or  other  dependants,  want  of 
charity  to  the  poor,  injuries  done  to  tradesmen  by  in- 
solvency or  delay  of  payment,  with  numberless  exam- 
ples of  the  same  kind,  are  accounted  no  breaches  of 
honour;  because  a  man  is  not  a  less  agreeable  com- 
panion for  these  vices,  nor  the  worse  to  deal  with  in 
those  concerns  which  are  usually  transacted  between 
one  gentleman  and  another. 

Again;  the  Law  of  Honour,  being  constituted  by 
men  occupied  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  for  the 
mutual  conveniency  of  such  men,  will  be  found,  as 
might  be  expected  from  the  character  and  design  of 
the  law-makers,  to  be,  in  most  instances,  favourable 
to  the  licentious  indulgence  of  the  natural  passions. 

Thus  it  allows  of  fornication,  adultery,  drunkenness, 
prodigality,  duelling,  and  of  revenge  in  the  extreme, 
and  lays  no  stress  upon  the  virtues  opposite  to  these. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND. 

THAT  part  of  mankind  who  are  beneath  the  Law 
of  Honour  often  make  the  Law  of  the  Land  their 
rule  of  life;  that  is,  they  are  satisfied  with  themselves, 
so  long  as  they  do  or  omit  nothing,  for  the  doing  or 
omitting  of  which  the  Law  can  punish  them. 

Whereas  every  system  of  human  Laws,  considered 
as  a  rule  of  life,  labours  under  the  two  following  de- 
fects:— 

1.  Human  Laws  omit  many  duties,  as  not  objects 


THE  SCRIPTURES.  23 

of  compulsion;  such  as  piety  to  God,  bounty  to  the 
poor,  forgiveness  of  injuries,  education  of  children, 
gratitude  to  benefactors. 

The  law  never  speaks  but  to  command,  nor  com- 
mands but  where  it  can  compel;  consequently  those 
duties,  which  by  their  nature  must  be  voluntary,  are 
left  out  of  the  statute-book,  as  lying  beyond  the  reach 
of  its  operation  and  authority. 

2.  Human  laws  permit,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing, 
suffer  to  go  unpunished,  many  crimes,  because  they 
are  incapable  of  being  denned  by  any  previous  des- 
cription.— Of  which  nature  are  luxury,  prodigality,  par- 
tiality in  voting  at  those  elections  in  which  the  qualifi- 
cations of  the  candidate  ought  to  determine  the  sue- 
cess,  caprice  in  the  disposition  of  men's  fortunes  at 
their  death,  disrespect  to  parents,  and  a  multitude 
of  similar  examples. 

For,  this  is  the  alternative:  either  the  law  must  de- 
fine beforehand  and  with  precision  the  offences  which 
it  punishes;  or  it  must  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
magistrate  to  determine  upon  each  particular  accusa- 
tion, whether  it  constitutes  that  offence  which  the  law 
designed  to  punish,  or  not;  which  is,  in  effect,  leaving 
to  the  magistrate  to  punish  or  not  to  punish,  at  his 
pleasure,  the  individual  who  is  brought  before  him; 
which  is  just  so  much  tyranny.  Where,  therefore,  as 
in  the  instances  above  mentioned,  the  distinction  be- 
tween right  and  wrong  is  of  too  subtile  or  of  too  secret  a 
nature  to  be  ascertained  by  any  preconcerted  language, 
the  law  of  most  countries,  especially  of  free  states, 
rather  than  commit  the  liberty  of  the  subject  to  the 
discretion  of  the  magistrate,  leaves  men  in  such  cases 
to  themselves. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    SCRIPTURES. 


WHOEVER  expects  to  find  in  the  Scriptures  a  spe- 
cific direction  for  every  moral  doubt  that  arises  looks 


24  THE    SCRIPTURES. 

for  more  than  he  will  meet  with.  And  to  what  mag- 
nitude such  a  detail  of  particular  precepts  would  have 
enlarged  the  sacred  volume,  may  be  partly  understood 
from  the  following  consideration: — The  laws  of  this 
country,  including  the  acts  of  the  legislature,  and  the 
decisions  of  our  supreme  courts  of  justice,  are  not  con- 
tained in  fewer  than  fifty  folio  volumes;  and  yet  it  is 
not  once  in  ten  attempts  that  you  can  find  the  case 
you  look  for,  in  any  law-book  whatever;  to  say  noth- 
ing of  those  numerous  points  of  conduct,  concerning 
which  the  law  professes  not  to  prescribe  or  determine 
any  thing.  Had  then  the  same  particularity,  which 
obtains  in  human  laws  so  far  as  they  go,  been  attempt- 
ed in  the  Scriptures,  throughout  the  whole  extent  of 
morality,  it  is  manifest  they  would  have  been  by  much 
too  bulky  to  be  either  read  or  circulated:  or  rather, 
as  St.  John  says,  "  even  the  world  itself  could  not 
contain  the  books  that  should  be  written." 

Morality  is  taught  in  scripture  L  his  wise. — General 
rules  are  laid  down  of  piety,  justice,  benevolence,  and 
purity;  such  as,  worshipping  God  inspirit  and  in  truth; 
doing  as  we  would  be  done  by;  loving  our  neighbour 
as  ourselves;  forgiving  others,  as  we  expect  forgiveness 
from  God;  that  mercy  is  better  than  sacrifice;  that 
not  that  which  entereth  into  a  man  (nor,  by  parity  of 
reason,  any  ceremonial  pollutions,)  but  that  which 
proceedcth  from  the  heart,  defileth  him.  These  rules 
are  occasionally  illustrated,  either  by  fictitious  exam- 
ples, as  in  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan;  and  of 
the  cruel  servant,  who  refused  to  his  fellow  servant 
that  indulgence  and  compassion  which  his  master  had 
shewn  to  him;  or  in  instances  which  actually  pre- 
sented themselves,  as  in  Christ's  reproof  of  his  disci- 
ples at  the  Samaritan  village;  his  praise  of  the  poor 
widow,  who  cast  in  her  last  mite;  his  censure  of  the 
Pharisees  who  chose  out  the  chief  rooms, — and  of  the 
tradition,  whereby  they  evaded  the  command  1o  sus- 
tain their  indigent  parents:  or,  lastly,  in  the  solution 
of  questions,  which  those  tvho  were  about  our  Sa- 
viour proposed  to  him ;  as  his  answer  to  the  young 
man  who  asked  him,  "What  lack  I  yet?"  and  to  the 
honest  scribe,  who  had  found  out,  even  in  that  age 


THE    SCRIPTURES.  25 

and  country,  that  "  to  love  God  and  his  neighbour, 
was  more  than  all  whole  burnt-offerings  and  sacri- 
fice." 

And  this  is  in  truth  the  way  in  which  all  practical 
sciences  are  taught,  as  Arithmetic  Grammar,  Navi- 
gation, and  the  like. — Rules  are  laid  down,  and  exam- 
ples are  subjoined:  not  that  these  examples  are  the 
cases,  much  less  all  the  cases,  which  will  actually  oc- 
cur; but  by  way  only  of  explaining  the  principle  of  the 
rule,  and  as  so  many  specimens  of  the  method  of  ap- 
plying it.  The  chief  difference  is,  that  the  examples 
in  Scripture  are  not  annexed  to  the  rules  with  the  didac- 
tic regularity  to  which  we  are  now-a-days  accustomed, 
but  delivered  dispersedly,  as  particular  occasions  sug- 
gested them;  which  gave  them,  however,  (especially 
to  those  who  heard  them,  and  were  present  on  the  oc- 
casions which  produced  them,)  an  energy  and  per- 
suasion, much  beyond  what  the  same  or  any  instances 
would  have  appeai  jd  with,  in  their  places  in  a  sys- 
tem. 

Beside  this,  the  Scriptures  commonly  presuppose, 
in  the  persons  to  whom  they  speak,  a  knowledge  of 
the  principles  of  natural  justice;  and  are  employed 
not  so  much  to  teach  new  rules  of  morality,  as  to  en- 
force the  practice  of  it  by  new  sanctions,  and  by  a 
greater  certainty ;  which  last  seems  to  be  the  pro- 
per business  of  a  revelation  from  God,  and  what  was 
most  wanted. 

Thus  the  "  unjust,  covenant-breakers,  and  extortion- 
ers," are  condemned  in  Scripture,  supposing  it  known, 
or  leaving  it,  where  it  admits  of  doubt,  to  moralists  to 
determine  what  injustice,  extortion,  or  breach  of  cove- 
nant are. 

The  above  considerations  are  intended  to  prove  that 
the  Scriptures  do  not  supersede  the  use  of  the  science 
of  which  we  profess  to  treat,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
acquit  them  of  any  charge  of  imperfection  or  insuffi- 
ciency on  that  account.  3 


26  MORAL    SENSE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  MORAL  SENSE. 

"THE  father  of  Cains  Toranius  had  been  pro- 
scribed by  the  triumvirate. — Caius  Toranius>  com- 
ing over  to  the  interests  of  that  party,  discovered  to 
the  officers,  who  were  in  pursuit  of  his  father's  life, 
the  place  where  he  concealed  himself,  and  gave  them 
withal  a  description,  by  which  they  might  distinguish 
his  person,  when  they  found  him.  The  old  man,  more 
anxious  for  the  safety  and  fortunes  of  his  son  than 
about  the  little  that  might  remain  of  his  ov.n  life^  be- 
gan immediately  to  inquire  of  the  officers  who  seized 
him,  whether  his  son  was  well;  whether  he  had  done 
his  duty  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  generals?  *  That  son 
(replied  one  of  the  officers,)  so  dear  to  thy  affections, 
betrayed  thee  to  us;  by  his  information  thou  art  ap- 
prehended, and  diest.'  The  officer  with  this,  struck 
a  poinard  to  his  heart,  and  the  unhappy  parent  fell, 
not  so  much  affected  by  his  fate  as  by  the  means  to 
which  he  owed  it."* 

Now  the  question  is,  whether,  if  this  story  were  re- 
lated to  the  wild  boy  caught  some  years  ago  in  the 
woods  of  Hanover,  or  to  a  savage  without  experience, 
and  without  instruction,  cut  off*  in  his  infancy  from  all 
intercourse  with  his  species,  and,  consequently,  under 
no  possible  influence  of  example,  authority,  education, 
sympathy,  or  habit;  whether,  I  say,  such  a  one  would 
feel,  upon  the  relation,  any  degree  of  that  sentiment 


*"  Caius  Toranius  triumvirum  partes  secutus,  proscripti 
patris  sui  praetorii  et  ornati  viri  latebras,  astatem,  notasque 
corporis,  quibus  agnosci  posset,  centurionibus  edidit,  qui  eum 
persecuti  sunt.  Sencx  de  filii  magis  vitji  et  increments 
quaSm  de  reliquo  spiritu  suo  solicitus,  an  incolumis  esset,  et 
an  irnperatoribus  satisfaceret,  interrogareeoscccpit.  E  qui- 
bus unus  :  '  Ab  illo,'  inquit,  *  quern  tantopere  diligis,  der.ion- 
stratus  nostro  ministerio,  filii  indicio  occideris  :'  protimisque 
pectus  ejus  gladio  trajecit.  Collapsus  itaque  est  infelix, 
auctore  csedis,  qu£m  ipsct  caede,  miserior." — Valer.  Max. 
lib.  ix.  cap.  11. 


MORAL.    SENSE.  27 

of  disapprobation  of  Toranius's  conduct  which  we 
feel,  or  not  ? 

They  who  maintain  the  existence  of  a  moral  sense; 
of  innate  maxims;  of  a  natural  conscience;  that  the 
love  of  virtue  and  hatred  of  vice  are  instinctive,  or  the 
perception  of  right  and  wrong  intuitive  (all  which  are 
only  different  ways  of  expressing  the  same  opinion,) 
affirm  that  he  would. 

They  who  deny  the  existence  of  a  moral  sense,  &c. 
affirm  that  he  would  not. 

And,  upon  this,  issue  is  joined. 

As  the  experiment  has  never  been  made,  and  from 
the  difficulty  of  procuring  a  subject  (not  to  mention 
the  impossibility  of  proposing  the  question  to  him,  if 
we  had  one,)  is  never  likely  to  be  made,  what  would 
be  the  event  can  only  be  judged  of  from  probable 
reasons. 

They  who  contend  for  the  affirmative  observe,  that 
we  approve  examples  of  generosity,  gratitude,  fidelity, 
&c.  and  condemn  the  contrary,  instantly,  without  de- 
liberation, without  having  any  interest  of  our  own 
concerned  in  them,  ofttimes  without  being  conscious 
of,  or  able  to  give  any  reason  for,  our  approbation: 
that  this  approbation  is  uniform  and  universal,  the 
same  sorts  of  conduct  being  approved  or  disapproved 
in  all  ages  and  countries  of  the  world; — circumstances, 
say  they,  which  strongly  indicate  the  operation  of  an 
instinct  or  moral  sense. 

On  the  other  hand,  answers  have  been  given  to  most 
of  these  arguments,  by  the  patrons  of  the  opposite 
system;  and, 

First,  as  to  the  uniformity  above  alleged,  they  con- 
trovert the  fact.  They  remark,  from  authentic  ac- 
counts of  historians  and  travellers,  that  there  is  scarce- 
ly a  single  vice  which,  in  some  age  or  country  of  the 
world,  has  not  been  countenanced  by  public  opinion 
that  in  one  country  it  is  esteemed  an  office  of  piety  in 
children  to  sustain  their  aged  parents;  in  another,  to 
despatch  them  out  of  the  way:  that  suicide,  in  one  age 
of  the  world,  has  been  heroism,  is  in  another  felony: 
that  theft,  which  is  punished  by  most  laws,  by  the  laws 
of  Sparta  was  not  unfrequently  rewarded:  that  the 


28  MORAL,   SEXSE. 

promiscuous  commerce  of  the  sexes,  although  con- 
demned by  the  regulations  and  censure  of  all  civilized 
nations,  is  practised  by  the  savages  of  the  tropical 
regions  without  reserve,  compunction  or  disgrace: 
that  crimes,  of  which  it  is  no  longer  permitted  us  even 
to  speak,  have  had  their  advocates  amongst  the  sages 
of  very  renowned  times:  that,  if  an  inhabitant  of  the 
polished  nations  of  Europe  be  delighted  with  the  ap- 
pearance, wherever  he  meets  with  it,'  of  happiness, 
tranquillity,  and  comfort,  a  wild  American  is  no  less 
diverted  with  the  writhings  and  contortions  of  a  victim 
at  the  stake:  that  even  amongst  ourselves,  and  in  the 
present  improved  state  of  moral  knowledge,  we  are 
far  from  a  perfect  consent  in  our  opinions  or  feelings: 
that  you  shall  hear  duelling  alternately  reprobated  and 
applauded,  according  to  the  sex,  age,  or  station  of  the 
person  you  converse  with:  that  the  forgiveness  of  in- 
'uries  and  insults  is  accounted  by  one  sort  of  people 
magnanimity,  by  another  meanness:  that  in  the  abovo 
instances,  and  perhaps  in  most  others,  moral  approba- 
tion follows  the  fashions  and  institutions  of  the  coun 
try  we  live  in;  which  fashions  also  and  institutions 
themselves  have  grown  out  of  the  exigencies,  the  cli 
mate,  situation,  or  local  circumstances  of  the  country 
or  have  been  set  up  by  the  authority  of  an  arbitrar) 
chieftain,  or  the  unaccountable  caprice  of  the  multi- 
tude:— all  which,  they  observe,  looks  very  little  like 
the  steady  hand  and  indelible  characters  of  Nature. 
But, 

Secondly,  Because,  after  these  exceptions  and  abate- 
ments, it  cannot  be  denied  but  that  some  sorts  of 
actions  command  and  receive  the  esteem  of  mankind 
more  than  others;  and  that  the  approbation  of  them 
is  general  though  not  universal:  as  to  this  they  say, 
that  the  general  approbation  of  virtue,  even  in  instances 
where  we  have  no  interest  of  our  own  to  induce  us  to 
it,  may  be  accounted  for,  without  the  assistance  of  a 
moral  sense;  thus: 

"  Having  experienced,  in  some  instance,  a  particu- 
lar conduct  to  be  beneficial  to  ourselves,  or  observed 
that  it  would  be  so,  a  sentiment  of  approbation  rises 
up  in  our  minds;  which  sentiment  afterwards  accom 


MORAL  SENSE.  29 

panics  the  idea  or  mention  of  the  same  conduct,  al- 
though the  private  advantage  which  first  excited  it  no 
longer  exist." 

And  this  continuance  of  the  passion,  after  the  rea- 
son of  it  has  ceased,  is  nothing  more,  say  they,  than 
what  happens  in  other  cases;  especially  in  the  love  of 
money,  which  is  in  no  person  so  eager  as  it  is  often- 
times found  to  be  in  a  rich  old  miser,  without  family 
to  provide  for,  or  friend  to  oblige  by  it,  and  to  whom 
consequently  it  is  no  longer  (and  he  may  be  sensible 
of  it  too)  of  any  real  use  or  value;  yet  is  this  man  as 
much  overjoyed  with  gain,  and  mortified  by  losses,  as 
be  was  the  first  day  he  opened  his  shop,  and  when  his 
very  subsistence  depended  upon  his  success  in  it. 

By  these  means  the  custom  of  approving  certain 
actions  commenced:  and  when  once  such  a  custom 
hath  got  footing  in  the  world,  it  is  no  difficult  thing  to 
explain  how  it  is  transmitted  and  continued;  for  then  J 
the  greatest  part  of  tKbse  who  approve  of  virtue  ap-  '*! 
prove  of  it  from  authority,  by  imitation,  and  from  a   j 
habit  of  approving  such  and  such  actions,  inculcated   I 
in  early  youth,  and  receiving,  as  men  grow  up,  con- 
tinual accessions  of  strength  and  vigour,  from  censure 
and  encouragement,  from  the   books  they  read,  the 
conversations  they  hear,  the  current  application  of 
epithets,  the  general  turn  of  language,  and  the  various 
other  causes  by  which  it  universally  comes  to  pass,  that 
a  society  of  men,  touched  in  the  feeblest  degree  with 
the  same  passion,  soon  communicate  to  one  another  a 
great  degree  of  it.*     This  is  the  case  with  most  of  us 


*  From  instances  of  popular  tumults,  seditions,  factions, 
panics,  and  of  all  passions  which  are  shared  with  a  multitude, 
we  may  learn  the,  influence  of  society,  in  exciting  and  sup- 
porting any  emotion  ;  while  the  most  ungovernable  disorders 
are  raised,  we  find,  by  that  means,  from  the  slightest  and 
most  frivolous  occasions.  He  must  be  more  or  less  than 
man  who  kindles  not  in  the  common  blaze.  What  wonder 
then,  that  moral  sentiments  are  found  of  such  influence  in 
life,  though  springing  from  principles  which  may  appear,  at 
first  sight,  somewhat  small  and  delicate." — Humfs  Inquiry 
concerning  the  Principles  of  Morals,  Sect.  ix.  p.  326 

3* 


30  MORAL  SENSE. 

at  present;  and  is  the  cause  also,  that  the  process  of 
association,  described  in  the  last  paragraph  but  one, 
is  little  now  either  perceived  or  wanted. 

Amongst  the  causes  assigned  for  the  continuance 
and  diffusion  of  the  same  moral  sentiments  amongst 
-  mankind,  we  have  mentioned  imitation.  The  efficacy 
of  this  principle  is  most  observable  in  children:  in- 
deed, if  there  be  any  thing  in  them  which  deserves 
the  name  of  an  instinct,  it  is  their  propensity  to  imi- 
tation. No\v  there  is  nothing  which  children  imitate 
or  apply  more  readily  than  expressions  of  affection  and 
aversion,  of  approbation,  hatred,  resentment,  and  the 
like;  and  when  these  passions  and  expressions  are 
once  connected,  which  they  soon  will  be  by  the  same 
association  which  unites  words  with  their  ideas,  the 
passion  will  follow  the  expression,  and  attach  upon 
the  object  to  which  the  child  has  been  accustomed  to 
apply  the  epithet.  In  a  word,  when  almost  every 
thing  else  is  learned  by  imitation,  can  we  wonder  to 
find  the  same  cause  concerned  in  the  generation  of 
our  moral  sentiments  ? 

Another  considerable  objection  to  the  system  of 
moral  instincts  is  this,  that  there  are  no  maxims  in 
the  science  which  can  well  be  deemed  innate,  as  none 
perhaps  can  be  assigned  which  are  absolutely  and 
universally  true;  in  other  words,  which  do  not  bend  to 
circumstances.  Veracity,  which  seems,  if  any  be,  a 
natural  duty,  is  excused  in  many  cases  towards  an 
enemy,  a  thief,  or  a  madman.  The  obligation  of 
promises,  which  is  a  first  principle  in  morality,  de- 
pends upon  the  circumstances  under  which  they  were 
made:  they  may  have  been  unlawful,  or  become  so 
since,  or  inconsistent  with  former  promises,  or  errone- 
ous, or  extorted;  under  all  which  cases,  instances  may 
be  suggested,  where  the  obligation  to  perform  the 
promise  would  be  very  dubious:  and  so  of  most  other 
general  rules,  when  they  come  to  be  actually  applied. 

An  argument  has  been  also  proposed  on  the  same 
side  of  the  question,  of  this  kind.  Together  with  the 
instinct,  there  must  have  been  implanted,  it  is  said,  a 
clear  and  precise  idea  of  the  object  upon  which  it  was 
to  attach.  The  instinct  and  the  idea  of  the  object  are 


MORAL  SENSE.  31 

inseparable  even  in  imagination,  and  as  necessarily 
accompany  each  other  as  any  correlative  ideas  what- 
ever: that  is,  in  plainer  terms,  if  we  be  prompted  by 
nature  to  the  approbation  of  particular  actions,  we 
must  have  received  also  from  nature  a  distinct  concep- 
tion of  the  action  we  are  thus  prompted  to  approve; 
which  we  certainly  have  not  received. 

But  as  this  argument  bears  alike  against  all  in- 
stincts, and  against  their  existence  in  brutes  as  well 
as  in  men,  it  will  hardly,  I  suppose,  produce  convic- 
tion, though  it  may  be  difficult  to  find  an  answer  to  it. 

Upon  the  whole,  it~  seems  to  me,  either  that  there 
exist  no  such  instincts  as  compose  what  is  called  the 
moral  sense,  or  that  they  are  not  now  to  be  distin- 
guished from  prejudices  and  habits ;  on  which  account 
they  cannot  be  depended  upon  in  moral  reasoning:  i 
mean,  that  it  is  not  a  safe  way  of  arguing,  to  assume 
certain  principles  as  so  many  dictates,  impulses,  and 
instincts  of  nature,  and  then  to  draw  conclusions  from 
these  principles,  as  to  the  rectitude  or  wrongness  of 
actions,  independent  of  the  tendency  of  such  actions, 
or  of  any  other  consideration  whatever. 

Aristotle  lays  down,  as  a  fundamental  and  self-evi- 
dent maxim,  that  nature  intended  barbarians  to  be 
slaves;  and  proceeds  to  deduce  from  this  maxim  a 
train  of  conclusions,  calculated  to  justify  the  policy 
which  then  prevailed.  And  I  question  whether  the 
same  maxim  be  not  still  self-evident  to  the  company 
of  merchants  trading  to  the  coast  of  Africa. 

Nothing  is  so  soon  made  as  a  maxim;  and  it  appears 
from  the  example  of  Aristotle,  that  authority  and  con- 
venience, education,  prejudice,  and  general  practice 
have  no  small  share  in  the  making  of  them;  and  that 
the  laws  of  custom  are  very  apt  to  be  mistaken  for  the 
order  of  nature. 

For  wrhich  reason,  I  suspect,  that  a  system  of  mo- 
rality, built  upon  instincts,  will  only  find  out  reasons 
and  excuses  for  opinions  and  practices  already  estab- 
lished,— will  seldom  correct  or  reform  either. 

But  further,  suppose  we  admit  the  existence  of  these 
instincts;  what,  it  may  be  asked,  is  their  authority  t 
No  man,  you  say,  can  act  ir  deliberate  opposition  to 


82  HUMAN  HAPPINESS, 

them,  without  a  secret  remorse  of  conscience.  Bui 
this  remorse  may  be  borne  with:  and  if  the  sinner 
choose  to  bear  with  it,  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  or 
the  profit -which  he  expects  from  his  wickedness;  or 
finds  the  pleasure  of  the  sin  to  exceed  the  remorse  of 
conscience,  of  which  he  alone  is  the  judge,  and  con- 
cerning which,  when  he  feels  them  both  together,  he 
can  hardly  be  mistaken,  the  moral  instinct  man,  so  far 
as  I  can  understand,  has  nothing  more  to  offer. 

For  if  he  allege  that  these  instincts  are  so  many  indi- 
cations of  the  will  of  God,  and  consequently  presages 
of  what  we  are  to  look  for  hereafter;  this,  I  answer, 
is  to  resort  to  a  rule  and  a  motive  ulterior  to  the  in- 
stincts themselves,  and  at  which  rule  and  motive  we 
shall  by  and  by  arrive  by  a  surer  road: — I  say  surer, 
so  long  as  there  remains  a  controversy  whether  there 
be  any  instinctive  maxims  at  all;  or  any  difficulty  in 
ascertaining  what  maxims  are  instinctive. 

This  celebrated  question  therefore  becomes  in  our 
system  a  question  of  pure  curiosity;  and  as  such,  we 
dismiss  it  to  the  determination  of  those  who  are  more 
inquisitive,  than  we  are  concerned  to  be,  about  the  na- 
tural history  and  constitution  of  the  human  species. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HUMAN  HAPPINESS. 

THE  word  happy  is  a  relative,  term:  that  is,  when 
we  call  a  man  happy,  we  mean  that  he  is  happier  than 
some  others,  with  whom  we  compare  him;  than  the 
generality  of  others;  or  than  he  himself  was  in  some 
other  situation: — thus,  speaking  of  one  who  has  just 
compassed  the  object  of  a  long  pursuit,  "Now,"  we 
say,  "  he  is  happy;"  and  in  a  like  comparative  sense, 
compared,  that  is,  with  the  general  lot  of  mankind, 
we  call  a  man  happy  who  possesses  health  and  com- 
petency. 

In  strictness,  any  condition  may  be  denominated 
happy,  in  which  the  amount  or  aggregate  of  pleasure 


HUMAN  HAPPINESS.  33 

exceeds  that  of  pain;  and  the  degree  of  happiness  de- 
pends upon  the  quantity  of  this  excess. 

And  the  greatest  quantity  of  it  ordinarily  attainable 
in  human  life  is  what  we  mean  by  happiness,  when 
we  inquire  or  pronounce  what  human  happiness  con- 
sists in.* 

In  which  inquiry  I  will  omit  much  usual  declama- 
tion on  the  dignity  and  capacity  of  our  nature;  the 
supJHority  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  of  the  rational  to 
the  animal  part  of  our  constitution;  upon  the  worthi- 
ness, refinement,  and  delicacy  of  some  satisfactions, 
or  the  meanness,  grossness,  and  sensuality  of  others; 
because  I  hold  that  pleasures  differ  in  nothing  but  in 


*  If  any  positive  signification,  distinct  from  what  we  mean 
by  pleasure,  can  be  affixed  to  the  term  "  happiness,5'  I  should 
take  it  to  denote  a  certain  state  of  the  nervous  system  in 
that  part  of  the  human  frame  in  which  we  feel  joy  and  grief 
passions  and  affections.  Whether  this  part  be  the  heart, 
which  the  turn,  of  most  languages  would  lead  us  to  believe, 
or  the  diaphragm,  as  Buffon,  or  the  upper  orifice  of  the  sto- 
mach, as  Van  Halmont  thought;  or  rather  be  a  kind  of  find 
net-work,  lining  the  whole  region  of  the  prsecordia,  as  ot.hers» 
have  imagined;  it  is  possible,  not  only  that  each  painful  sen 
sation  may  violently  shake  and  disturb  the  fibres  at  the  time, 
but  that  a  series  of  such  may  at  length  so  derange  the  tex- 
ture of  the  system  as  to  produce  a  perpetual  irritation,  which 
will  show  itself  by  fretfulness,  impatience,  and  restlessness. 
It  is  possible  also,  on  the  other  hand,  that  a  succession  of 
pleasurable  sensations  may  have  such  an  effe€t  upon  this  sub- 
tile organization  as  to  cause  the  fibres  to  relax,  and  return  in- 
to their  place  and  order,  and  thereby  to  recover,  or,  if  not 
lost,  to  preserve  that  harmonious  confirmation  which  gives  to 
the  mind  its  sense  of  complacency  and  satisfaction.  This 
state  may  be  denominated  happines3,and  is  so  far  distinguisha- 
ble from  pleasure,  that  it  does  not  refer  to  any  partictiular 
object  of  enjoyment,  or  consist,  like  pleasure,  in  the  gratifi- 
cation of  one  or  more  of  the  senses,  but  is  rather  the  secon- 
dary effect  which  such  objects  and  gratifications  produce  up- 
on the  nervous  system,  or  the  state  in  which  they  leave  it. 
These  conjectures  belong  not,  however,  to  our  province. 
The  comparative  sense,  in  which  we  have  explained  the  term 
Happiness,  is  more  popular,  and  is  sufficient  far  the  purpose 
of  the  present  chapter. 


84  HUMAN  HAPPINESS. 

continuance  and  intensity:  from  a  just  computation  of 
which,  confirmed  by  what  we  observe  of  the  apparent 
cheerfulness,  tranquillity,  and  contentment  of  men  of 
different  tastes,  tempers,  stations,  and  pursuits  every 
question  concerning  human  happiness  must  receive  its 
decision. 

It  will  be  our  business  to  show,  if  we  can, 

1.  What  Human  Happiness  does  not  consis^in: 

2.  What  it  does  consist  in. 

FJRST,  then,<tlappmess  does  not  consist  in  the 
pleasures  of  sense,  in  whatever  profusion  or  variety 
they  be  enjoyed.  By  the  pleasures  of  sense,  I  mean, 
as  well  as  the  animal  gratifications  of  eating,  drinking, 
and  that  by  which  the  species  is  continued,  as  the 
more  refined  pleasures  of  music,  painting,  architecture, 
gardening,  splendid  shows,  theatric  exhibitions;  and 
the  pleasures,  lastly,  of  active  sports,  as  of  hunting, 
shooting,  fishing,  &c.  For, 

1st,  These_pjeasures  continue  but  a  little  while  at 
a  time.  This  is  true  of  them  all,  especially  of  the 
grosser  sort  of  them.  Laying  aside  the  preparation 
and  the  expectation,  and  computing  strictly  the  actual 
sensation,  we  shall  be  surprised  to  find  how  inconside- 
rable a  portion  of  our  time  they  occupy,  how  few 
hours  in  the  four  and  twenty  they  are  able  to  fill  up. 

2dly,  These  pleasures,  by  repetition,  lose  their 
relish.  It  is  a  property  of  the  machine,  for  which  we 
know  no  remedy,  that  the  organs  by  which  we  per- 
ceive pleasure  are  blunted  and  benumbed  by  being 
frequently  exercised  in  the  same  way.  There  is  hard- 
ly any  one  who  has  not  found  the  difference  between 
a  gratification,  when  new,  and  when  familiar;  or  any 
pleasure  which  does  not  become  indifferent  as  it  grows 
habitual. 

3dly,  The  eagerness  for  hi^li  and  intense  delights 
takes  away  the  relish  from  all  others;  and  as  such 
delights  fall  rarely  in  our  way,  the  greater  part  of  our 
time  becomes,  from  this  cause,  empty  and  uneasy. 

There  is  hardly  any  delusion  by  which  men  are 
greater  sufferers  in  their  happiness  than  by  their  ex- 
pecting too  much  from  what  is  called  pleasure;  that 
is,  from  those  intense  delights  which  vulgarly  engross 


HUMAN  HAPPINESS  35 

the  name  of  pleasure.  The  very  expectation  spoils 
them.  When  they  do  come,  we  are  often  engaged  in 
taking  pains  to  persuade  ourselves  how  much  we  are 
pleased,  rather  than  enjoying  any  pleasure  which 
springs  naturally  out  of  the  object.  And  whenever 
we  depend  upon  being  vastly  delighted,  we  always  go 
home  secretly  grieved  at  missing  our  aim.  Likewise, 
as  has  been  observed  just  now,  when  this  humour  of 
being  prodigiously  delighted  has  once  taken  hold  of. 
the  imagination,  it  hinders  us  from  providing  for,  or 
acquiescing  in,  those  gently  soothing  engagements, 
the  due  variety  and  succession  of  which  are  the  only 
things  that  supply  a  vein  or  continued  stream  of  hap- 
piness. 

What  I  have  been  able  to  observe  of  that  part  of 
mankind,  whose  professed  pursuit  is  pleasure,  and  who 
are  withheld  in  the  pursuit  by  no  restraints  of  fortune, 
or  scruples  of  consciences,  corresponds  sufficiently  with 
this'  account.  I  have  commonly  remarked  in  such 
men  a  restless  and  inextinguishable  passion  for  va- 
riety; a  great  part  of  their  time  to  be  vacant,  and  so 
much  of  it  irksome;  and  that,  with  whatever  eager- 
ness and  expectation  they  set  out,  they  become,  by 
degrees,  fastidious  in  their  choice  of  pleasures,  lan- 
guid in  the  enjoyment,  yet  miserable  under  the  want 
of  it. 

The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  there  is  a  limit  at  which 
these  pleasures  soon  arrive,  and  from  which  they  ever 
afterwards  decline.  They  are  by  necessity  of  short 
duration,  as  the  organs  cannot  hold  on  their  emotions 
beyond  a  certain  length  of  time;  and  if  you  endea- 
vour to  compensate  for  this  imperfection  in  their  na- 
ture by  the  frequency  with  which  you  repeat  them, 
you  suffer  more  than  you  gain,  by  the  fatigue  of  tho 
faculties,  and  the  diminution  of  sensibility. 

We  have  said  nothing  in  this  account,  of  the  loss  of 
opportunities  or  the  decay  of  faculties,  which,  when- 
ever they  happen,  leave  the  voluptuary  destitute  and 
desperate ;  teased  by  desires  that  can  never  be  grati- 
fied, and  the  memory  of  pleasures  which  must  return 
no  more. 

It  will  also  be  allowed  by  those  who  have  experi- 


86  HUMAN    HAPPINESS. 

enced  it,  and  perhaps  by  those  alone,  that  pleasure 
which  is  purchased  by  the  encumbrance  of  our  fortune, 
is  purchased  too  dear;  the  pleasure  never  compen- 
sating for  the  perpetual  irritation  of  embarrassed  cir- 
cumstances. 

These  pleasures,  after  all,  have  their  value;  and 
as  the  young  are  always  too  eager  in  their  pursuit  of 
them,  the  old  are  sometimes  tc>p  remiss,  that  is,  too 
studious  of  their  ease,  to  be  at  the  pains  for  them 
which  they  really  deserve. 

SECONDLY;  Neither  does  happiness  consist  in  an 
exemption  from  pain,  labour,  care,  business,  suspense, 
molestation,  and  "  those  evils  which  are  without;" 
such  a  state  being  usually  attended,  not  with  ease,  but 
with  depression  of  spirits,  a  tastelessness  in  all  our 
ideas,  imaginary  anxieties,  and  the  whole  train  of 
hypochondriacal  affections. 

For  which  reason,  the  expectations  of  those  who 
retire  from  their  shops  and  countinghouses,  to  enjoy 
the  remainder  of  their  days  in  leisure  and  tranquillity, 
,are  seldom  answered  by  the  effect;  much  less  of  such 
as,  in  a  fit  of  chagrin,  shut,  themselves  up  in  cloisters 
and  hermitages,  or  quit  the  world,  and  their  stations 
in  it,  for  solitude  and  repose. 

Where  there  exists  a  known  external  cause  of  un 
easiness,  the  cause  may  be  removed,  and  the  uneasi- 
ness, will  cease.  But  those  imaginary  distresses  which 
men  feel  for  want  of  real  ones  (and  which  are  equal- 
ly tormenting,  and  BO  far  equally,)  as  they  depend 
upon  no  single  or  assignable  subject  of  uneasiness, 
admit  oftentimes  of  no  application  of  relief. 

Hence  a  moderate  pain,  upon  which  the  attention 
may  fasten  and  spend  itself,  is  to  many  a  refreshment 
as  a  fit  of  the  gout  will  sometimes  cure  the  spleen. 
And  the  same  of  any  less  violent  agitation  of  the 
mind,  as  a  literary  controversy,  a  lawsuit,  a  contested 
election,  and,  above  all,  gaming;  the  passion  for  which, 
in  men  of  fortune  and  liberal  minds,  is  only  to  be  ac- 
counted for  on  this  principle. 

THIRDLY;  Neither  does  happiness  consist  in  great- 
ness, rank,  or  elevated  station. 

Were  it  true  that  all  superiority  afforded  pleasure, 


HUMAN    HAPPINESS.  37 

it  would  follow,  that  by  how  much  we  were  the  greater, 
that  is,  the  more  persons  we  were  superior  to,  in  the 
same  proportion,  so  far  as  depended  upon  this  cause, 
we  should  be  the  happier;  but  so  it  is,  that  no  supe- 
riority yields  any  satisfaction,  save  that  which  we 
possess  or  obtain  over  those  with  whom  we  immedi- 
ately compare  ourselves.  The  shepherd  perceives  no 
pleasure  in  his  superiority  over  his  dog;  the  farmer, 
in  his  superiority  over  the  shepherd;  the  lord,  in  his 
superiority  over  the  farmer;  nor  the  king,  lastly,  in 
his  superiority  over  the  lord.  Superiority,  where 
there  is  no  competition,  is  seldom  contemplated;  what 
most  men  are  quite  unconscious  of. 

But  if  the  same  shepherd  can  run,  fight,  or  wrestle, 
better  than  the  peasants  of  his  village;  if  the  farmer 
can  show  better  cattle,  if  he  keep  a  better  horse,  or  be 
supposed  to  have  a  longer  purse,  than  any  farmer  in 
the  hundred;  if  the  lord  have  more  interest  in  an 
election*  greater  favour  at  court,  a  better  house,  or 
larger  estate  than  any  nobleman  in  the  country;  if 
the  king  possess  a  more  extensive  territory,  a  more 
powerful  fleet  or  army,  a  more  splendid  establishment, 
more  loyal  subjects,  or  more  weight  and  authority  in 
adjusting  the  affairs  of  nations,  than  any  prince  in 
Europe; — in  all  these  cases,  the  parties  feel  an  actual 
satisfaction  in  their  superiority. 

Now  the  conclusion  that  follows  from  hence  is  this; 
that  the  pleasures  of  ambition,  which  are  supposed  to 
be  peculiar  to  high  stations,  are  in  reality  common  to 
all  conditions.  The  farrier  who  shoes  a  horse  better, 
and  who  is  in  greater  request  for  his  skill  than  any 
man  within  ten  miles  of  him,  possesses,  for  all  that  I 
can  see,  the  delight  of  distinction  and  of  excelling,  as 
truly  and  substantially  as  the  statesman,  the  soldier, 
and  the  scholar,  who  have  filled  Europe  with  the 
reputation  of  their  wisdom,  their  valour,  or  their 
knowledge. 

No  superiority  appears  to  be  of  any  account,  but 
superiority  over  a  rival.  This,  it  is  manifest,  may 
exist  wherever  rivalshi-ps  do;  and  rivalships  fall  out 
amongst  men  of  all  ranks  and  degrees.  The  object 
of  emulation,  the  dignity  or  magnitude  of  this  object 

VOL.  i.  4 


38  HUMAN    HAPPINESS. 

makes  no  difference;  as  it  is  not  what  either  pos- 
sesses that  constitutes  the  pleasure,  but  what  one  pos- 
sesses more  than  the  other. 

Philosophy  smiles  at  the  contempt  with  which  the 
rich  and  great  speak  of  the  petty  strifes  and  compe- 
titions of  the  poor;  not  reflecting  that  these  strifes  and 
competitions  are  just  as  reasonable  as  their  own,  and 
the  pleasures  which  success  affords,  the  same. 

Our  position  is,  that  happiness  does  not  consist  in 
greatness.  And  this  position  we  make  out  by  show- 
ing, that  even  what  are  supposed  to  be  the  peculiar 
advantages  of  greatness,  the  pleasures  of  ambition 
and  superiority,  are  in  reality  common  to  all  condi- 
tions. But  whether  the  pursuits  of  ambition  be  ever 
wise,  whether  they  contribute  more  to  the  happiness 
or  misery  of  the  pursuers,  is  a  different  question;  and 
a  question  concerning  which  we  may  be  allowed  to 
entertain  great  doubt.  The  pleasure  of  success  is 
exquisite;  so  also  is  the  anxiety  of  the  pursuit,  and 
the  pain  of  disappointment; — and  what  is  the  worst 
part  of  the  account,  the  pleasure  is  shortlived.  We 
soon  cease  to  look  back  upon  those  whom  we  have 
left  behind;  now  contests  are  engaged  in,  new  pros- 
pects unfold  themselves;  a  succession  of  struggles  is» 
kept  up,  whilst  there  is  a  rival  left  within  the  com- 
pass of  our  views  and  profession;  and  when  there  is 
none,  the  pleasure  with  the  pursuit  is  at  an  end. 

II.  We  have  seen  what  happiness  does  not  consist 
in.  We  are  next  to  consider  in  what  it  does  consist. 

In  the  conduct  of  life  the  great  matter  is  to  know 
beforehand  what  will  please  us,  and  what  pleasure 
will  hold  out.  So  far  as  we  know  this,  our  choice 
will  be  justified  by  the  event.  And  this  knowledge  is 
more  scarce  and  difficult  than  at  first  sight  it  may 
seem  to  be:  for  sometimes  pleasures,  which  are  won- 
derfully alluring  and  flattering  in  the  prospect,  turn 
out  in  the  possession  extremely  insipid;  or  do  not 
hold  out  as  we  expected:  at  other  times  pleasures 
start  up  which  never  entered  into  our  calculation, 
and  which  we  might  have  missed  of  by  not  foresee- 
ing: whence  we  have  reason  to  believe,  that  we  ac- 
tually do  miss  of  manv  pleasures  from  the  same  cause. 


HUMAN    HAPPINESS.  39 

I  say  to  know  "beforehand;"  for,  after  the  experi- 
ment is  tried,  it  is  commonly  impracticable  to  retreat 
or  change;  beside  that  shifting  and  changing  is  apt 
to  generate  a  habit  of  restlessness,  which  is  destructive 
of  the  happiness  of  every  condition. 

By  the  reason  of  the  original  diversity  of  taste, 
capacity,  and  constitution,  observable  in  the  human 
species,  and  the  still  greater  variety  which  habit  and 
fashion  have  introduced  in  these  particulars,  it  is 
impossible  to  propose  any  plan  of  happiness  which 
will  succeed  to  all,  or  any  method  of  life  which  is 
universally  eligible  or  practicable. 

All  that  can  be  said  is,  that  there  remains  a  pre- 
sumption in  favour  of  those  conditions  of  life,  in  which 
men  generally  appear  most  cheerful  and  contented. 
For  though  the  apparent  happiness  of  mankind  be 
not  always  a  true  measure  of  their  real  happiness,  it 
is  the  best  measure  we  have. 

Taking  this  for  my  guide,  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  happiness  consists, 

1.  In  the  exercise  of  the  social  affections. 

Those  persons  commonly  possess  goo3  spirits  who 
have  about  them  many  objects  of  affection  and  en- 
dearment, as  wife,  children,  kindred,  friends.  And 
to  the  want  of  these  may  be1  imputed  the  peevishness 
of  monks,  and  of  such  as  lead  a  monastic  life. 

Of  the  same  nature  with  the  indulgence  of  our  do- 
mestic affections,  and  equally  refreshing  to  the  spirits, 
is  the  pleasure  which  results  from  acts  of  bounty  and 
beneficence,  exercised  either  in  giving  money,  or  in 
imparting,  to  those  who  want  it,  the  assistance  of  our 
skill  and  profession. 

Another  main  article  of  human  happiness  is, 

2.  The  exemse  of  _.cuir_ikciiUifiiS^,  either  of  body  or 
mind,  in  the  pursuit  of  some  engaging  end. 

It  seems  to  be  true,  that  no  plenitude  of  present 
gratifications  can  make  the  possessor  happy  for  a  con* 
tinuance,  unless  he  have  something  in  reserve — some- 
thing to  hope  for,  and  look  forward  to.  This  I  con- 
elude  to  be  the  case,  from  comparing  the  alacrity  and 
spirits  of  men  who  are  engaged  in  any  pursuit  which 
interests  them,  with  the  dejection  and  ennui  of  almost 


40  HUMAN    HAPPINESS. 

all,  who  are  either  born  to  so  much  that  they  want 
nothing  more,  or  who  have  used  up  their  satisfactions 
too  soon,  and  drained  the  sources  of  them. 

It  is  this  intolerable  vacuity  of  mind  which  carries 
the  rich  and  great  to  the  horse  course  and  the  gaming 
table;  and  often  engages  them  in  contests  and  pur- 
suits, of  which  the  success  bears  no  proportion  to  the 
solicitude  and  expense  with  which  it  is  sought.  An 
election  for  a  disputed  borough  shall  cost  the  parties 
iwenty  or  thirty  thousand  pounds  each, — to  say  no- 
thing of  the  anxiety,  humiliation,  and  fatigue  of  the 
canvass;  when  a  seat  in  the  house  of  commons,  of 
exactly  the  same  value,  may  be  had  for  a  tenth  part 
of  the  money,  and  with  no  trouble.  I  do  not  mention 
this  to  blame  the  rich  and  great  (perhaps  they  cannot 
do  better,)  but  in  confirmation  of  what  I  have  ad- 
vanced. 

Hope,  which  thus  appears  to  be  of  so  much  im- 
portance to  our  happiness,  is  of  two  kinds; — where 
there  is  something  to  be  done  towards  attaining  the 
object  of  our  hope,  and  where  there  is  nothing  to  be 
done.  The  first  alone  is  of  any  value;  the  latter 
being  apt  to  corrupt  into  impatience,  having  no 
power  but  to  sit  still  and  wait,  which  soon  grows 
tiresome. 

The  doctrine  delivered  under  this  head  may  be 
readily  admitted;  but  how  to  provide  ourselves  with 
a  succession  of  pleasurable  engagements  is  the  diffi- 
culty. This  requires  two  things:  judgment  in  the 
choice  of  ends  adapted  to  our  opportunities;  and  a 
command  of  imagination,  so  as  to  be  able,  when  the 
judgment  has  made  choice  of  an  end,  to  transfer  a 
pleasure  to  the  means :  after  which,  the  end  may  be 
forgotten  as  soon  as  we  will. 

Hence  those  pleasures  are  most  valuable,  not  which 
are  most  exquisite  in  the  fruition,  but  which  are  most 
productive  of  engagement  and  activity  in  the  pursuit. 
*  A  man  who  is  in  earnest  in  his  endeavours  after 
the  happiness  of  a  future  state  has,  in  this  respect,  an 
advantage  over  all  the  world;  for  he  has  constantly 
before  his  eyes  an  object  of  supreme  importance,  pro- 
ductive of  perpetual  engagement  and  activity,  and  of 


HUMAN    HAPPINESS  41 

arhich  the  pursuit  (which  can  be  said  of  no  pursuit 
besides)  lasts  him  to  his  life's  end.  Yet  even  lie  must 
have  many  ends,  besides  the  far  end ;  but  then  they 
will  conduct  to  that,  be  subordinate,  and  in  some  way 
or  other  capable  of  being  referred  to  that,  and  derive 
their  satisfaction,  or  an  addition  of  satisfaction,  from 
that. 

Engagement  is  every  thing:  the  more  significant, 
however j  our  engagements  are,  the  better;  such  as  the 
planning  of  laws,  institutions,  manufactures,  charities, 
improvements,  public  works;  and  the  endeavouring, 
by  our  interest,  address,  solicitations,  and  activity,  to 
carry  them  into  effect:  or,  upon  a  smaller  scale,  the 
procuring  of  a  maintainance  and  fortune  for  our  fami- 
lies by  a  course  of  industry  and  application  to  our 
callings,  which  forms  and  gives  motion  to  the  com- 
mon occupations  of  life;  training  up  a  child;  prose- 
cuting a  scheme  for  his  future  establishment;  mak- 
ing ourselves  masters  of  a  language  or  a  science;  im- 
proving or  managing  an  estate;  labouring  after  a 
piece  of  preferment;  and  lastly,  any  engagement  which 
is  innocent  is  better  than  none;  as  the  writing  of  a 
book,  the  building  of  a  house,  the  laying  out  of  a  gar- 
den, the  digging  of  a  fishpond, — even  the  raising  of  a 
cucumber  or  a  tulip. 

Whilst  our  minds  are  taken  up  with  the  objects  or 
business  before  us  we  are  commonly  happy,  whatever 
the  object  or  business  be;  when  the  mirid  is  absent 
and  the  thoughts  are  wandering  to  something  else 
than  what  is  passing  in  the  place  in  which  we  are, 
we  are  often  miserable. 

3.  Happiness  depends  upon  the  prudent  consti- 
tution of  the  habits. 

The  art  in  which  the  secret  of  human  happiness  in 
a  great  measure  consists,  is  to  set  the  habits  in  such  a 
manner,  that  every  change  may  be  a  change  for  the 
better.  The  habits  themselves  are  much  the  same" 
for  whatever  is  made  habitual  becomes  smooth,  and 
easy,  and  nearly  indifferent.  The  return  to  an  old 
habit  is  likewise  easy,  whatever  the  habit  be.  There- 
fore the  advantage  is  with  those  habits  which  allow 
•>f  an  indulgence  in  the  deviation  from  them.  The 

4* 


42  HUMAN    HAPPINESS. 

luxurious  receive  no  greater  pleasures  from  their  dain- 
ties than  the  peasant  does  from  his  bread  and  cheese: 
but  the  peasant,  whenever  he  goes  abroad,  finds  a 
feast;  whereas  the  epicure  must  be  well  entertained 
to  escape  disgust.  Those  who  spend  every  day  at 
cards,  and  those  who  go  every  day  to  plough,  pass 
their  time  much  alike;  intent  upon  what  they  are 
about,  wanting  nothing,  regretting  nothing,  they  are 
both  for  the  time  in  a  state  of  ease:  but  then,  what- 
ever suspends  the  occupation  of  the  cardplayer  dis- 
tresses him;  whereas  to  the  labourer  every  interrup- 
tion is  a  refreshment:  and  this  appears  in  the  differ- 
ent effects  that  Sunday  produces  upon  the  two,  which 
proves  a  day  of  recreation  to  the  one,  but  a  lamenta- 
ble burden  to  the  other.  The  man  who  has  learned 
to  live  alone  feels  his  spirits  enlivened  whenever  he 
enters  into  company,  and  takes  his  leave  without 
regret;  another,  who  has  long  been  accustomed  to  a 
crowd,  or  continual  succession  of  company,  experi- 
ences in  company  no  elevation  of  spirits,  nor  any 
greater  satisfaction  than  what  the  man  of  a  retired 
life  finds  in  his  chimney  corner.  So  far  their  condi- 
tions are  equal:  but  let  a  change  of  place,  fortune, 
or  situation  separate  the  companion  from  his  circle,, 
his  visitors,  his  club,  common  room,  or  coffeehouse; 
and  the  difference  and  advantage  in  the  choice  and 
constitution  of  the  two  habits  will  show  itself.  Soli- 
tude comes  to  the  one  clothed  with  melancholy;  to 
the  other  it  brings  liberty  and  quiet.  You  will  see 
the  one  fretful  and  restless,  at  a  loss  how  to  dispose 
of  his  time  till  the  hour  come  round  when  he  may 
forget  himself  in  bed:  the  other,  easy  and  satisfied, 
taking  up  his  book  or  his  pipe  as  soon  as  he  finds 
himself  alone;  ready  to  admit  any  little  amusement 
that  casts  up,  or  to  turn  his  hands  and  attention  to 
the  first  business  that  presents  itself;  or  content,  with- 
out either,  to  sit  stiU,  and  let  his  train  of  thought  glide 
indolently  through  his  brain,  without  much  use,  per- 
haps, or  pleasure,  but  without  hankering  after  any 
thing  better,  or  without  irritation. — A  reader,  who 
has  inured  himself  to  books  of  science  and  argumen- 
tation, if  a  novel,  a  well  written  pamphlet,  an  article 


HUMAN    HAPPINESS.  43 

of  news,  a  narrative  of  a  curious  voyage,  or  a  journal 
of  a  traveller  fall  in  his  way,  sits  down  to  the  repast 
with  relish;  enjoys  his  entertainment  while  it  lasts, 
and  can  return,  when  it  is  over,  to  his  graver  reading 
without  distaste.  Another,  with  whom  nothing  will 
go  down  but  works  of  humour  and  pleasantry,  or 
whose  curiosity  must  be  interested  by  perpetual  no- 
velty, will  consume  a  bookseller's  window  in  half  a 
forenoon;  during  which  time  he  is  rather  in  search  of 
diversion  than  diverted;  and  as  books  to  his  taste  are 
few  and  short,  and  rapidly  read  over,  the  stock  is 
soon  exhausted,  when  he  is  left  without  resource  from 
this  principal  supply  of  harmless  amusement. 

So  far  as  circumstances  of  fortune  conduce  to  hap- 
piness, it  is  not  the  income  which  any  man  possesses, 
but  the  increase  of  income  that  affords  the  pleasure. 
Two  persons,  of  whom  one  begins  with  a  hundredj 
and  advances  his  income  to  a  thousand  pounds  a 
year,  and  the  other  sets  off  with  a  thousand,  and  dwin- 
dles down  to  a  hundred,  may,  in  the  course  of  their 
time,  have  the  receipt  and  spending  of  the  same  sum 
of  money;  yet  their  satisfaction,  so  far  as  fortune  is 
concerned  in  it,  will  be  very  different:  the  series  and 
sum  total  of  their  incomes  being  the  same,  it  makes  a 
wide  difference  at  which  end  they  begin. 

4.  Happiness  consists  in  health, 

By  health  I  understand,  as  well  freedom  from  bo- 
dily distempers,  as  that  tranquillity,  firmness,  and 
alacrity  of  mind,  which  we  call  good  spirits;  and 
which  may  properly  enough  be  included  in  our  notion 
of  health,  as  depending  commonly  upon  the  same 
causes,  and  yielding  to  the  same  management,  as  our 
bodily  constitution. 

Health,  in  this  sense,  is  the  one  thing  needful. 
Therefore  no  pains,  expense,  self-denial,  or  restraint 
to  which  we  subject  ourselves  for  the  sake  of  health, 
is  too  much.  Whether  it  require  us  to  relinquish 
lucrative  situations,  to  abstain  from  favourite  indul- 
gences, to  control  intemperate  passions,  or  undergo 
tedious  regimens;  whatever  difficulties  it  lays  us 
under,  a  man,  who  pursues  his  happiness  rationally 
and  resolutely,  will  be  content  to  submit. 


44  VIRTUE 

When  we  are  in  perfect  health  and  spirits,  we  feel 
m  ourselves  a  happiness  independent  of  any  particu- 
lar outward  gratification  whatever,  and  of  which  we 
can  give  no  account.  This  is  an  enjoyment  which 
the  Deity  has  annexed  to  life;  and  it  probably  con- 
stitutes, in  a  great  measure,  the  happiness  of  infants 
and  brutes,  especially  of  the  lower  and  sedentary  or- 
ders of  animals,  as  of  oysters,  periwinkles,  and  the 
like;  for  which  I  have  sometimes  been  at  a  loss  to 
find  out  amusement. 

The  above  account  of  human  happiness  will  justify 
the  two  following  conclusions,  which,  although  found 
in  most  books  of  morality,  have  seldom,  I  think,  been 
supported  by  any  snificient  reason: — 

FIRST,  That  happiness  is  pretty  equally  distributed 
amongst  the  different  orders  of  civil  society: 

SECONDLY,  That  vice  has  no  advantage  over  virtue, 
even  with  respect  to  this  world's  happiness. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


VIRTUE  is  "  the  doing  good  to  mankind,  in  obe- 
dience to  the  will  of  God}  and  for  the  sake  of  ever- 
lasting happiness." 

According  to  which  definition,  "  the  good  of  man- 
kind," is  the  subject;  the  "  will  of  God,"  the  rule; 
and  "  everlasting  happiness,"  the  motive,  of  human 
virtue. 

Virtue  has  been  divided  by  some  moralists  into 
benevolence,  prudence,  fortitude,  and  temperance. 
Benevolence  proposes  good  ends;  prudence  suggests 
the  best  means  of  attaining  them;  fortitude  enables 
us  to  encounter  the  difficulties,  dangers,  and  discou- 
ragements which  stand  in  our  way  in  pursuit  of  these 
ends;  temperance  repels  and  overcomes  the  passions 
that  obstruct  it.  Benevolence,  for  instance,  prompts 
us  to  undertake  the  cause  of  an  oppressed  orphan: 
prudence  suggests  the  best  means  of  going  about  it: 


VIRTUE.  45 

fortitude  enables  us  to  confront  the  danger,  and  bear 
up  against  the  loss,  disgrace,  or  repulse  that  may 
attend  our  undertaking;  and  temperance  keeps  under 
the  love  of  money,  of  ease,  or  amusement  which  might 
divert  us  from  it. 

Virtue  is  distinguished  by  others  into  two  branches 
only,  prudence  and  benevolence  :  prudence,  attentive 
to  our  own  interest;  benevolence,  to  that  of  our  fellow 
creatures:  both  directed  to  the  same  end,  the  increase 
of  happiness  in  nature ;  and  taking  equal  concern  in 
the  future  as  in  the  present. 

The  four  c  ARDINAL,  virtues  are  prudence,  fortitude, 
temperance,  and  justice. 

But  the  division  of  virtue,  to  which  we  are  in  mo- 
dern times  most  accustomed,  is  into  duties: — 

Towards  God ;  as  piety,  reverence,  resignation, 
gratitude,  &c. 

Towards  other  men  (or  relative  duties;)  as  justice, 
charity,  fidelity,  loyalty,  &c. 

Towards  ourselves  ,•  as  chastity,  sobriety,  tempe- 
rance, preservation  of  life,  cate  of  health,  &c. 

More  of  these  distinctions  have  been  proposed, 
which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  set  down. 


I  shall  proceed  to  state  a  few  observations,  which 
relate  to  the  general  regulation  of  human  conduct; 
unconnected  indeed  with  each  other,  but  very  wor- 
thy of  attention ;  and  which  fall  as  properly  under  the 
title  of  this  chapter  as  of  any  future  one. 

1.  Mankind  act  more  from  habit  than  reflection. 

It  is  on  few  only  and  great  occasions  that  men  de- 
liberate at  all;  on  fewer  still,  that  they  institute  any 
thing  like  a  regular  inquiry  into  the  moral  rectitude 
or  depravity  of  what  they  are  about  to  do;  or  wait  for 
the  result  of  it.  We  are  for  the  most  part  determined 
xat  once;  and  by  an  impulse,  which  is  the  effect  and 
energy  of  preestablished  habits.  And  this  constitu- 
tion seems  well  adapted  to  the  exigencies  of  human 
life,  and  to  the  imbecility  of  our  moral  principle.  In 
the  current  occasions  and  rapid  opportunities  of  life, 
there  is  oftentimes  little  leisure  for  reflection;  and 


46  VIRTUE. 

were  there  more,  a  man,  who  has  to  reason  about  his 
duty,  when  the  temptation  to  transgress  it  is  upon 
him,  is  almost  sure  to  reason  himself  into  an  error. 

§If  we  are  in  BO  great  a  degree  passive  under  our 
bits,  Where,  it  is  asked,  is  the  exercise  of  virtue, 
3  guilt  of  vice,  or  any  use  of  moral  and  religious 
owledge  ?  I  answer,  In  the  forming  and  contracting 
these  habits. 

And  hence  results  a  rule  of  life  of  considerable  im- 
portance, viz.  that  many  things  are  to  be  done  and 
abstained  from,  solely  for  the  sake  of  habit.  We  will 
explain  ourselves  by  an  example  or  two. — A  beggar, 
with  the  appearance  of  extreme  distress,  asks  our  cha- 
rity. If  we  come  to  argue  the  rrKitter,  whether  the 
distress  be  real,  whether  it  be  not  brought  upon  him- 
self, whether  it  be  of  public  advantage  to  admit  such 
application,  whether  it  be  not  to  encourage  idleness 
and  vagrancy,  whether  it  may  not  invite  impostors  to 
our  doors,  whether  the  money  can  be  well  spared,  or 
might  not  be  better  applied;  when  these  considera- 
tions are  put  together,  it  may  appear  very  doubtful, 
whether  we  ought  or  ought  not  to  give  any  thing. 
But  when  we  reflect,  that  the  misery  before  our  eyes 
excites  our  pity,  whether  we  will  or  not;  that  it  is  of 
the  utmost  consequence  to  us  to  cultivate  this  tender- 
ness of  mind:  that  it  is  a  quality  cherished  by  indul- 
gence, and  soon  stifled  by  opposition; — when  this,  I 
say  is  considered,  a  wise  man  will  do  that  for  his  own 
sake  which  he  would  have  hesitated  to  do  for  the  pe- 
titioner's; he  will  give  way  to  his  compassion  rather 
than  offer  violence  to  a  habit  of  so  much  general  use. 

A  man  of  confirmed  good  habits  will  act  in  the  same 
manner,  without  any  consideration  at  all. 

This  may  serve  for  one  instance:  another  is  the  fol- 
lowing:— A  man  has  been  brought  up  from  his  in- 
fancy with  a  dread  of  lying.  An  occasion  presents 
itself  where,  at  the  expense  of  a  little  veracity,  he  may 
divert  his  company,  set  off  his  own  wit  with  advan- 
tage, attract  the  notice  and  engage  the  partiality  of 
all  about  him.  This  is  not  a  small  temptation.  And 
when  he  looks  at  the  other  side  of  the  question,  he 
sees  no  mischief  that  can  ensue  frcm  this  liberty,  no 


VIRTUE.  47 

slander  of  any  man's  reputation,  no  prejudice  likely 
to  arise  to  any  man's  interest.  Were  there  nothing 
further  to  be  considered,  it  would  be  difficult  to  show 
why  a  man  under  such  circumstances  might  not  in- 
dulge his  humour.  But  when  he  reflects  that  his 
pcruplcs  about  lying  have  hitherto  preserved  him  free 
from  this  vice;  that  occasions  like  the  present  will 
return,  where  the  inducement  will  be  equally  strong, 
but  the  indulgence  much  less  innocent;  that  his 
scruples  will  wear  away  by  a  few  transgressions,  and 
leave  him  subject  to  one  of  the  meanest  and  most 
pernicious  of  all  bad  habits, — a  habit  of  lying,  when- 
ever it  will  serve  his  turn:  when  all  this,  I  say,  is  con- 
sidered, a  wise  man  will  forego  the  present,  or  a  much 
greater  pleasure,  rather  than  lay  the  foundation  of  a 
character  so  vicious  and  contemptible. 

From  what  has  been  said  may  be  explained  also 
the  nature  of  habitual  virtue.  By  the  definition  of 
virtue,  placed  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  it  ap- 
pears, that  the  good  of  mankind  is  the  subject,  the 
will  of  God  the  rule,  and  everlasting  happiness  the 
motive  and  end  of  all  virtue.  Yet,  in  fact,  a  man 
shall  perform  many  an  act  of  virtue,  without  having 
either  the  good  of  mankind,  the  will  of  God,  or  ever- 
lasting happiness  in  his  thought.  How  is  this  to  bo 
understood  ?  In  the  same  manner  as  that  a  man  may 
be  a  very  good  servant,  without  being  conscious,  at 
every  turn  of  a  particular  regard  to  his  master's  will, 
or  of  an  express  attention  to  his  master's  interest;  in- 
deed, your  best  old  servants  are  of  this  sort:  but  then 
he  must  have  served  for  a  length  of  time  under  the 
actual  direction  of  these  motives  to  bring  it  to  this;  in 
which  service  his  merit  and  virtue  consist. 

There  are  habits,  not  only  of  drinking,  swearing, 
and  lying,  and  of  some  other  things,  which  are  com- 
monly acknowledged  to  be  habits,  and  called  so;  but 
of  every  modification  of  action,  speech,  and  thought: 
Man  is  a  bundle  of  habits. 

There  are  habits  of  industry,  attention,  vigilance, 
advertency;  of  a  prompt  obedience  to  the  judgment 
occurring,  or  of  yielding  to  the  first  impulse  of  pas- 
sion ;  of  extending  our  views  to  the  future,  or  of  rest- 


48  VIRTUE. 

ing  upon  the  present. ;  of  apprehending,  methodizing, 
reasoning;  of  indolence  and  dilatoriness;  of  vanity, 
self-conceit,  melancholy,  partiality;  of  fretfulness, 
suspicion,  captiousness,  censoriousness;  of  pride,  ambi- 
tion, covetousness;  of  overreaching,  intriguing,  pro- 
jecting; in  a  word,  there  is  not  a  quality  or  function, 
either  of  body  or  mind,  which  does  not  feel  the  influ- 
ence of  this  great  law  of  animated  nature. 

2.  The  Christian  Religion  hath  not  ascertained  the 
precise  quantity  of  virtue  necessary  to  salvation. 

This  has  been  made  an  objection  to  Christianity; 
but  without  reason.  For,  as  all  revelation,  however 
imparted  originally,  must  be  transmitted  by  the  ordi- 
nary vehicle  of  language,  it  behoves  those  who  make 
the  objection  to  show,  that  any  form  of  words  could 
be  devised,  that  might  express  this  quantity;  or  that 
it  is  possible  to  constitute  a  standard  of  moral  attain- 
ments, accommodated  to  the  almost  infinite  diversity 
which  subsists  in  the  capacities  and  opportunities  of 
different  men. 

It  seems  most  agreeable  to  our  conceptions  of  jus- 
tice, and  is  consonant  enough  to  the  language  of 
Scripture,*  to  suppose,  that  there  are  prepared  for  us 
rewards  and  punishments,  of  all  possible  degrees, 
from  the  most  exalted  happiness  down  to  extreme 
misery:  so  that  "  our  labour  is  never  in  vain:"  what- 


*  "  lie  which  soweth  sparingly  shall  reap  also  sparingly  ; 
and  he  which  soweth  bountifully  shall  reap  also  bountifully." 
2  Cor.  ix.  6. — "  And  that  servant  which  knew  his  Lord's 
will,  and  prepared  not  himself,  neither  did  according  to  his 
will,  shall  be  beaten  with  many  stripes  ;  but  he  tnat  knew 
not  shall  be  beaten  with  few  stripes."  Luke  xii.  47,  48. — 
•"'  Whosoever  shall  give  you  a  cup  of  water  to  drink  in  my 
name,  because  ye  belong  to  Christ ;  verily  I  say  unto  you 
he  shall  not  lose  his  reward  ;"  to  wit,  intimating  that  there 
is  in  reserve  a  proportionable  reward  for  even  the  smallest 
act  of  virtue.  Mark  ix.  41. — See  also  the  parable  of  the 
pounds,  Luke  xix  16,  &c. ;  where  he  whose  pound  had  gain- 
ed ten  pounds,  was  placed  over  ten  cities  ;  and  he  whose 
pound  had  gained  five  pounds,  was  placed  over  five  cities 


VIRTUE.  49 

ever  advancement  we  make  in  virtue f  we pro eureka 
proportionable  accession  of  future  happiness;  as,  on 
the  other  hancT,  every  accumulation  of  vice  is  the 
"  treasuring  up  so  much  wrath  against  the  day  of 
wrath."  It  has  been  said,  that  it  can  never  be  a  just 
economy  of  Providence,  to  admit  one  part  of  mankind 
into  heaven,  and  condemn  the  other  to  hell;  since 
there  must  be  very  little  to  choose,  between  the  worst 
man  who  is  received  into  heaven,  and  the  best  who  is 
excluded.  And  how  know  we,  it  might  be  answered, 
but  that  there  may  be  as  little  to  choose  in  the  con- 
ditions ? 

Without  entering  into  a  detail  of  Scripture  morality, 
which  would  anticipate  our  subject,  the  following  gen- 
eral positions  may  be  advanced,  I  think,  with  safety. 

1.  That  a  state  of  happiness  is  not  to  be   expected 
by  those  who  are  conscious  of  no  moral  or  religious 
rule:  I  mean  those  who  cannot  with  truth  say,  that 
they  have  been  prompted  to  one  action,  or  withholden 
from  one  gratification,  by  any  regard  to*virtue  or  re- 
ligion, either  immediate  or  habitual. 

There  needs  no  other  proof  of  this,  than  the  consi- 
deration that  a  brute  would  be  as  proper  an  object  of 
reward  as  such  a  man,  and  that,  if  the  case  were  so, 
the  penal  sanctions  of  religion  could  have  no  place. 
For,  whom  would  you  punish,  if  you  make  such  a  one 
as  this  happy  ? — or  rather,  indeed,  religion  itself,  both 
natural  and  revealed,  would  cease  to  have  either  use 
or  authority. 

2.  That  a  state  of  happiness  is  not  to  be  expected 
by  those  who  reserve  to  themselves  the  habitual  prac- 
tice of  any  one  sin,  or  neglect  of  one  known  duty; 

Because  no  obedience  can  proceed  upon  proper 
motives,  which  is  not  universal,  that  is,  which  is  not 
directed  to  every  command  of  God  alike,  as  they  all 
stand  upon  the  same  authority; 

Because  such  an  allowance  would  in  effect  amount 
to  a  toleration  of  every  vice  in  the  world ; 

And  because  the  strain  of  Scripture  language  ex- 
cludes any  such  hope.  When  our  duties  are  recited, 
they  are  put  collectively,  that  is,  as  all  and  every  of 
them  required  in  the  Christian  character.  "  Add  to 

VOL.    I.  5 


50  VIRTUE. 

your  faith  virtue,  and  to  virtue  knowledge,  and  to 
knowledge  temperance,  and  to  temperance  patience, 
and  to  patience  godliness,  and  to  godliness  brotherly 
kindness,  and  to  brotherly  kindness  charity."*  On 
the  other  hand,  when  vices  are  enumerated,  they  are 
put  disjunctively,  that  is,  as  separately  and  severally 
excluding  the  sinner  from  heaven.  '*  Neither  forni- 
cators,  nor  idolaters,  nor  adulterers,  nor  effeminate, 
nor  abusers  of  themselves  with  mankind,  nor  thieves, 
nor  covetous,  nor  drunkards,  nor  revilers,  nor  extor- 
tioners shall  inherit  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  "t 

Those  texts  of  Scripture  which  seem  to  lean  a  con- 
trary way,  as  that  "  charity  shall  cover  the  multitude 
of  sins;"^:  that  "he  which  con verteth  a  sinner  from 
the  error  of  his  way  shall  hide  a  multitude  of  sins;"^ 
cannot,  I  think  for  the  reasons  abovementioned,  be 
extended  to  sins  deliberately,  habitually,  and  obsti 
nately  persisted  in. 

3.  That  testate  of  mere  unprofitableness  will  not  go 
unpunished. 

This  is  expressly  laid  down  by  Christ,  in  the  parable 
of  the  talents,  which  supersedes  all  further  reasoning 
upon  the  subject.  "  Then  he  which  had  received  one 
talent  came,  and  said,  Lord,  I  knew  thee  that  thou  art 
an  austere  man,  reaping  where  thou  hast  not  sown, 
and  gathering  where  thou  hast  not  strewed:  and  I 
was  afraid,  and  hid  thy  talent  in  the  earth;  lo,  there 
thou  hast  that  is  thine.  His  lord  answered  and  said 
unto  him,  Thou  wicked  and  slothful  servant,  thou 
knevvest  (or  knewest  thou?)  that  I  reap  where  I  sow- 
ed not,  and  gather  where  I  have  not  strawed;  thou 
oughtest  therefore  to  have  put  my  money  to  the  ex- 
changers, and  then,  at  my  coming,  I  should  have  receiv- 
ed mine  own  with  usury.  Take  therefore  the  talent 
from  him,  and  give  it  unto  him  which  hath  ten  talents; 
for  unto  every  one  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  he 
shall  have  abundance;  but  from  him  that  hath  not 
shall  be  taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath:  and 


*  2  Pet.  i.  5,  6,  7.  t  Cor.  vi.  9, 10. 

}  1  Pet.  iv.  8.  §  James,  v.  20. 


VIRTUE.  61 

cast  ye  the  unprofitable  servant  into  outer  darkness, 
there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth."* 

3.  In  every  question  of  conduct,  where  one  side  is 
doubtful,  and  the  other  side  safe,  we  are  bound  to  take 
the  safe  side. 

This  is  best  explained  by  an  instance;  and  I  know 
of  none  more  to  our  purpose  than  that  of  suicide. 
Suppose,  for  examples  sake,  that  it  appear  doubtful  to 
a  reasoner  upon  the  subject,  whether  he  may  lawfully 
destroy  himself:  He  can  have  no  doubt,  that  it  is  law- 
ful for  him  to  let  it  alone.  Here  therefore  is  a  case, 
in  which  one  side  is  doubtful,  and  the  other  side  safe. 
By  virtue,  therefore,  of  our  rule,  he  is  bound  to  pur- 
sue the  safe  side,  that  is,  to  forbear  from  offering  vio- 
lence to  himself,  whilst  a  doubt  remains  upon  his 
mind  concerning  the  lawfulness  of  suicide. 

It  is  prudent^  you  allow,  to  take  the  safe  side.  But 
our  observation  means  something  more.  We  assert 
that  the  artion  concerning  which  we  doubt,  whatever 
it  may  be  in  itself,  or  to  another,  would,  in  us,  whilst 
this  doubt  remains  upon  our  minds,  be  certainly  sinful. 
The  case  is  expressly  so  adjudged  by  St.  Paul,  with 
whose  authority  we  will  for  the  present  rest  contented. 
— "  I  know  and  am  persuaded  by  the  Lord  Jesus,  that 
there  is  nothing  unclean  of  itself;  but  to  him  that 
esteemeth  any  thing  to  be  unclean,  to  him  it  is  un- 
clean. Happy  is  he  that  condemneth  not  himself  in 
that  thing  which  he  alloweth;  and  he  that  doubteth  is 
damned  (condemned)  if  he  eat,  for  whatsoever  is  not 
of  faith  (i.  e.  not  done  with  a  full  persuasion  of  the 
lawfulness  of  it)  is  sin."t 


»  Mat.  xxv.  24,  &c.  f  Rora.  xiv  14, 22,  23. 


BOOK  II. 

MORAL  OBLIGATION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   QUESTION,    "  WHY  AM  I  OBLIGED  TO  KEEP 
MY  WORD?"    CONSIDERED. 

WHY  am  I  obliged  to  keep  my  word  ? 

Because  it  is  right  says  one. — Because  it  is  agree- 
able to  the  fitness  of  things,  says  another. — Because 
it  is  conformable  to  reason  and  nature,  says  a  third — • 
Because  it  is  conformable  to  truth,  says  a  fourth. — 
Because  it  promotes  the  public  good,  says  a  fifth. — 
Because  it  is  required  by  the  will  of  God,  concludes  a 
sixth. 

Upon  which  different  accounts  two  things  are  ob- 
servable ; — 

FIRST,  that  they  all  ultimately  coincide. 

The  fitness  of  things  means  their  fitness  to  produce 
happiness:  the  nature  of  things  means  that  actual 
constitution  of  the  world,  by  which  some  things,  as 
such  and  such  actions,  for  example,  produce  happi- 
ness, and  others  misery:  Reason  is  the  principle  by 
which  we  discover  or  judge  of  this  constitution:  truth 
is  this  judgment  expressed  or  drawn  out  into  proposi- 
tions. So  that  it  necessarily  comes  to  pass,  that  what 
promotes  the  public  happiness,  or  happiness  on  the 
whole,  is  agreeable  to  the  fitness  of  things,  to  nature, 
to  reason,  and  to  truth:  and  such  (as  will  appear  by 
and  by)  is  the  divine  character,  that  what  promotes 
the  general  happiness  is  required  by  the  will  of  God; 
and  what  has  all  the  above  properties  must  needs  be 
right;  for  right  means  no  more  than  conformity  to 
the  rule  we  go  by,  whatever  that  rule  be. 


MORAL,  OBLIGATION.  63 

And  this  is  the  reason  that  moralists  from  whatever 
different  principles  they  set  out,  commonly  meet  in 
their  conclusions;  that  is,  they  enjoin  the  same  con- 
duct, prescribe  the  same  rules  of  duty,  and,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  deliver  upon  dubious  cases  the  same  de- 
terminations. 

SECONDLY,  It  is  to  be  observed,  that  these  answers 
all  leave  the  matter  short;  for  the  inquirer  may  turn 
round  upon  his  teacher  with  a  second  question,  in 
which  he  will  expect  to  be  satisfied,  namely,  Why 
am  I  obliged  to  do  what  is  right;  to  act  agreeably  to 
the  fitness  of  things;  to  conform  to  reason,  nature,  or 
truth;  to  promote  the  public  good,  or  to  obey  the 
will  of  God  ? 

The  proper  method  of  conducting  the  inquiry  is, 
FIRST,  to  examine  what  we  mean  when  we  say  a  man 
is  obliged  to  do  any  thing;  and  THEN  to  show  why  he 
is  obliged  to  do  the  thing  which  we  have  proposed  as 
an  example,  namely,  "  to  keep  his  word." 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHAT  WE  MEAN  WHEN  WE  SAY  A  MAN  IS 
"  OBLIGED"  TO  DO  A  THING. 

A  MAN  is  said  to  be  obliged*  "  ivhen  he  is  urged  by 
a  violent  motive,  resulting  from  the  command  of  an- 
other." 

FIRST,  "  The  motive  must  be  violent."  If  a  per- 
son, who  has  done  me  some  little  service,  or  has  a 
small  place  in  his  disposal,  ask  me  upon  some  occasion 
for  my  vote,  I  may  possibly  give  it  him  from  a  motive 
of  gratitude  or  expectation:  but  I  should  hardly  say 
that  I  was  obliged  to  give  it  him;  because  the  induce* 
ment  does  not  rise  high  enough.  Whereas  if  a  father 
or  a  master,  any  great  benefactor,  or  one  on  whom  my 
fortune  depends,  requires  my  vote,  I  give  it  him  of 
course:  and  my  answer  to  al!  who  ask  me  why  I  voted 
so  and  so  is,  that  my  father  or  my  master  obliged  me; 
that  I  had  received  so  many  favours  from,  or  had  so 

VOL   i.  6* 


54  MORAL  OBLIGATION. 

great  a  dependence  upon  such  a  one,  that  I  was  oblig- 
ed to  vote  as  he  direct  me. 

SECONDLY,  "  It  must  result  from  the  command  of 
another."  Offer  a  man  a  gratuity  for  doing  any  thing, 
for  seizing,  for  example,  an  offender;  he  is  not  obliged 
by  your  offer  to  do  it,  nor  would  he  say  he  is;  though 
he  may  be  induced,  persuaded,  prevailed  upon, 
tempted.  If  a  magistrate  or  the  man's  immediate  su- 
perior command  it,  he  considers  himself  as  obliged  to 
comply,  though  possibly  he  would  lose  less  by  a  refu- 
sal in  this  case  than  in  the  former. 

I  will  not  undertake  to  say  that  the  words  obligation 
and  obliged  are  used  uniformly  in  this  sense,  or  always 
with  this  distinction;  nor  is  it  possible  to  tie  down 
popular  phrases  to  any  constant  signification:  bui1 
wherever  the  motive  is  violent  enough,  and  coupler 
with  the  idea  of  command,  authority,  law,  or  the  will 
of  a  superior,  there,  I  take  it,  we  always  reckon  our 
selves  to  be  obliged. 

And  from  this  account  of  obligation  it  follows,  tha  , 
we  can  T>e  obliged  to  nothing  but  what  we  ourselve> 
are  to  gain  or  lose  something  by;  for  nothing  els* 
can  be  a  "  violent  motive"  to  us.  As  we  should  not 
be  obliged  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  magistrate,  unless 
rewards  or  punishments,  pleasure  or  pain,  somehow . 
or  other,  depended  upon  our  obedience;  so  neithei 
should  we,  without  the  same  reason,  be  obliged  to  do 
what  is  right,  to  practise  virtue,  or  to  obey  the  com- 
mands of  God. 


CHAPIFR  III. 

THE   QUESTION,    "  WHY  AM   I   OBLIGED  TO  KEEP 
MY    WORD?"    RESUMED. 

LET  it  be  remembered,  that  to  be  obliged  is  "  to 
be  urged  by  a  violent  motive,  resulting  from  the  com- 
mand of  another." 

And  then  let  it  be  asked,  Why  am  I  obliged  to  keep 
my  word  ?  and  the  answer  will  be,  Because  I  am  *'  urg- 
ed to  do  BO  by  a  violent  motive"  (namely,  the  ex- 


MORAL,  OBLIGATION.  55 

pectation  of  being  after  this  life  rewarded,  if  I  do, 
or  punished  for  its  if  I  do  not,)  "  resulting  from  the 
command  of  another"  (namely,  of  God.) 

This  solution  goes  to  the  bottom  of  the  subject,  as 
no  further  question  can  reasonably  be  asked. 

Therefore,  private  happiness  is  our  motive,  and  the~\ 
will  of  God  our  rule. 

When  I  first  turned  my  thoughts  to  moral  specula- 
tions, an  air  of  mystery  seemed  to  hang  over  the 
whole  subject;  which  arose,  I  believe,  from  hence, — 
that  I  supposed,  with  many  authors  whom  I  had  read, 
that  to  be  obliged  to  do  a  thing  was  very  different 
from  being  induced  only  to  do  it ;  and  that  the  obliga- 
tion to  practise  virtue,  to  do  what  is  right,  just,  &c. 
was  quite  another  thing,  and  of  another  kind,  than 
the  obligation  which  a  soldier  is  under  to  obey  his 
officer,  a  servant  his  master,  or  any  of  the  civil  and 
ordinary  obligations  of  human  life.  Whereas  from 
what  has  been  said,  it  appears  that  moral  obligation 
is  like  all  other  obligations;  and  that  obligation  is 
nothing  more  than  an  inducement  of  sufficient  strength, 
and  resulting,  in  some  way,  from  the  command  of 
another. 

There  is  always  understood  to  be  a  difference  be- 
tween an  act  of  prudence  and  an  act  of  duty.  Thus, 
if  I  distrusted  a  man  who  owed  me  a  sum  of  money,  I 
should  reckon  it  an  act  of  prudence  to  get  another 
person  bound  with  him;  but  I  should  hardly  call  it 
an  act  of  duty.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be 
thought  a  very  unusual  and  loose  kind  of  language, 
to  say,  that,  as  I  had  made  such  a  promise,  it  was 
prudent  to  perform  it;  or  that,  as  my  friend,  when  he 
went  abroad,  placed  a  box  of  jewels  in  my  hands,  it 
would  be  prudent  in  me  to  preserve  it  for  him  till  he 
returned. 

Now,  in  what,  you  will  ask,  does  the  difference 
consist  ?  inasmuch  as,  according  to  our  account  of  the 
matter,  both  in  the  one  case  and  the  other,  in  acts  of 
duty  as  well  as  acts  of  prudence,  we  consider  solely 
what  we  ourselves  shall  gain  or  lose  by  the  act. 

The  difference,  and  the  only  difference,  is  this; 
that,  in  the  one  case,  we  consider  what  we  shall  gain 


T6  WILL  OF  GOD. 

or  lose  in  the  present  world;  in  the  other  case,  we 
consider  also  what  we  shall  gain  or  lose  in  the  world 
Lto_come. 

They  who  would  establish  a  system  of  morality,  in- 
dependent of  a  future  state,  must  look  out  for  some 
different  idea  of  moral  obligation;  unless  they  can 
show  that  virtue  conducts  the  possessor  to  certain  hap- 
piness in  this  life,  or  to  a  much  greater  share  of  it 
than  he  could  attain  by  a  different  behaviour. 
To  us  there  are  two  great  questions: 

1.  Will  there  be  after  this  life   any  distribution  of 
rewards  and  punishments  at  all  ? 

2.  If  there  be,  what  actions  will  be  rewarded,  and 
what  will  be  punished  ? 

The  first  question  comprises  the  credibility  of  the 
Christian  Religion,  together  with  the  presumptive 
proofs  of  a  future  retribution  from  the  light  of  nature 
The  second  question  comprises  the  province  of  morali 
ty.  Both  questions  are  too  much  for  one  work, 
The  affirmative  therefore  of  the  first,  although  we 
confess  that  it  is  the  foundation  upon  which  the  whol< 
fabric  rests,  must  in  this  treatise  be  taken  for  granted 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  WILL,  OF  GOD. 

As  the  will  of  God  is  our  rule;  to  inquire  what  is 
our  duty,  or  what  we  are  obliged  to  do,  in  any  instance, 
is,  in  effect,  to  inquire  what  is  the  will  of  God  in  that 
instance  ?  wh;ch  consequently  becomes  the  whole  bu- 
siness of  morality. 

Now  there  are  two  methods  of  coming  at  the  will 
(  of  God  on  any  point: 

1.  By  his  express  declarations,  when  they  are  to  be 
had,  and  which  must  be  sought  for  in  Scripture. 

2.  By  what  we  can  discover  of  his  designs  and  dis- 
positions from  his  works;  or,  as  we  usually  call  it,  the 
light  of  nature 


WILL  OF  GOD.  67 

And  heue  we  may  observe  the  absurdity  of  separat- 
ing natural  and  revealed  religion  from  each  other. 
The  object  of  both  is  the  same — to  discover  the  will 
of  God; — and,  provided  we  do  but  discover  it,  it  mat- 
ters nothing  by  what  means. 

An  ambassador,  judging  by  what  he  knows  of  his 
sovereign's  disposition,  and  arguing  from  what  he  has 
observed  of  his  conduct,  or  is  acquainted  with  of  his 
designs,  may  take  his  measures  in  many  cases  with 
safety,  and  presume  with  great  probability  how  his 
master  would  have  him  act  on  most  occasions  that 
arise:  but  if  he  have  his  commission  and  instructions 
ia  his  pocket,  it  would  be  strange  not  to  look  into 
them.  He  will  be  directed  by  both  rules:  when  his 
instructions  are  clear  and  positive,  there  is  an  end  to 
all  further  deliberation  (unless  indeed  he  suspect  their 
authenticity:)  where  his  instructions  are  silent  or 
dubious,  he  will  endeavour  to  supply  or  explain  them, 
by  what  he  has  been  able  to  collect  from  other  quar- 
ters of  his  master's  general  inclination  or  intentions. 

Mr.  Hume,  in  his  fourth  Appendix  to  his  Principles 
of  Morals,  has  been  pleased  to  complain  of  the  mod- 
ern scheme  of  uniting  Ethics  with  the  Christian  The- 
ology. They  who  find  themselves  disposed  to  join 
in  this  complaint  will  do  well  to  observe  what  Mr. 
Hume  himself  has  been  able  to  make  of  morality 
without  this  union.  And  for  that  purpose  let  them 
read  the  second  part  of  the  ninth  section  of  the  above 
essay;  which  part  contains  the  practical  application 
of  the  whole  treatise, — a  treatise  which  Mr.  Hume 
declares  to  be  "  incomparably  the  best  he  ever  wrote." 
When  they  have  read  it  over,  let  them  consider,  whe- 
ther any  motives  there  proposed  are  likely  to  be  found 
sufficient  to  withhold  men  from  the  gratification  of  lust, 
revenge,  envy,  ambition,  avarice;  or  to  prevent  the 
existence  of  these  passions.  Unless  they  rise  up  from 
this  celebrated  essay  with  stronger  impressions  upon 
their  minds  than  it  ever  left  upon  mine,  they  will  ac- 
knowledge the  necessity  of  additional  sanctions.  But 
the  necessity  of  these  sanctions  is  not  now  the  ques- 
tion. If  they  b3  in  fact  established,  if  the  rewards 
and  punishments  held  forth  in  the  gospel  will  actually 


58  DIVINE    BENEVOLENCE. 

come  to  pass,  they  must  be  considered.  Such  as 
reject  the  Christian  religion  are  to  make  the  best  shift 
they  can  to  build  up  a  system,  and  lay  the  foundation 
of  morality,  without  it.  But  it  appears  to  me  a  great 
inconsistency  in  those  \vho  receive  Christianity,  and 
expect  something  to  come  of  it,  to  endeavour  to  keep 
all  such  expectations  out  of  sight  in  their  reasonings 
concerning  human  duty. 

yvv^/The  metn°d  of  coming  at  the  will  of  God,  concern- 
j  *n&  any  action,  by  the  light  of  nature,  is  to  inquire 
i  into  "  the  tendency  of  the  action  to  promote  or  climi- 
|  nish  the  general  happiness."  This  rule  proceeds  upon 
/  the  presumption,  that  God  Almighty  wills  and  wishes 
!  the  happiness  of  his  creatures;  and,  consequently,  that 
those  actions  which  promote  that  will  and  wish  must 
v  be  agreeable  to  him;  and  the  contrary. 

As  this  presumption  is  the  foundation  of  our  whole 
system,  it  becomes  necessary  to  explain  the  reasons 
upon  which  it  rests. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    DIVINE    BENEVOLENCE. 

WHEN  God  created  the  human  species,  either  he 
wished  their  happiness,  or  he  "wished  their  misery,  or 
he  was  indifferent  and  unconcerned  about  both. 

If  he  had  wished  our  misery,  he  might  have  made 
sure  of  his  purpose,  by  forming  our  senses  to  be  so 
many  sores  and  pains  to  us,  as  they  are  now  instru- 
ments of  gratification  and  enjoyment:  or  by  placing 
us  amidst  objects  so  ill  suited  to  our  perceptions,  as  to 
have  continually  offended  us,  instead  of  ministering  to 
our  refreshment  and  delight.  He  might  have  made, 
for  example,  every  thing  we  tasted  bitter;  every 
thing  we  saw  loathsome;  every  thing  we  touched  a 
sting;  every  smell  a  stench;  and  every  sound  a  dis- 
cord. 

If  he  had  been  indifferent  about  our  happiness  or 
misery,  we  must  impute  to  our  good  fortune  (as  all 


DIVINE    BENEVOLENCE.  59 

design  by  this  supposition  is  excluded)  boih  the  capa- 
city of  our  senses  to  receive  pleasure,  and  the  supply 
of  external  objects  fitted  to  produce  it.  But  either  of 
these  (and  still  more  both  of  them)  being  too  much  to 
be  attributed  to  accident,  nothing  remains  but  the  first 
supposition,  that  God,  when  he  created  the  human 
species,  wished  their  happiness;  and  made  for  them 
the  provision  which  he  has  made,  with  that  view, 
and  for  that  purpose. 

The  same  argument  may  be  proposed  in  different 
terms,  thus:  Contrivance  proves  design;  and  the 
predominant  tendency  of  the  contrivance  indicates 
the  disposition  of  the  designer.  The  world  abounds 
with  contrivances;  and  all  the  contrivances  which  we 
are  acquainted  with  are  directed  to  beneficial  pur- 
poses. Evil,  no  doubt,  exists;  but  is  never,  that  we 
can  perceive,  the  object  of  contrivance.  Teeth  are 
contrived  to  eat,  not  to  ache;  their  aching  now  and 
ihen  is  incidental  to  the  contrivance,  perhaps  insepa- 
rable from  it;  or  even,  if  you  will,  let  it  be  called  a 
defect  in  the  contrivance;  but  it  is  not  the  object  of  it. 
This  is  a  distinction  which  well  deserves  to  be  attend- 
ed to.  In  describing  implements  of  husbandry,  you 
would  hardly  say  of  the  sickle,  that  it  is  made  to  cut 
the  reaper's  fingers,  though,  from  the  construction  of 
the  instrument,  and  the  manner  of  using  it,  this  mis- 
chief often  happens.  But  if  you  had  occasion  to 
describe  instruments  of  torture  or  execution.  This 
engine,  you  wrould  say,  is  to  extend  the  sinews;  this 
to  dislocate  the  joints;  this  to  break  the  bones;  this 
to  scorch  the  soles  of  the  feet.  Here  pain  and  misery 
are  the  very  objects  of  the  contrivance.  Now,  noth- 
ing of  this  sort  is  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  nature. 
We  never  discover  a  train  of  contrivance  to  bring  about 
an  evil  purpose.  No  anatomist  ever  discovered  a 
system  of  organization  calculated  to  produce  pain  and 
disease;  or^  in  explaining  the  parts  of  the  human 
body,  ever  said,  This  is  to  irritate;  this  to  inflame; 
this  duct  is  to  convey  the  gravel  to  the  kidneys;  this 
gland  to  secrete  the  humour  which  forms  the  gout:  if 
by  chance  he  come  at  a  part  of  which  he  knows  not 
the  use,  the  most  he  can  say  is,  that  it  is  useless;  no 


60  DIVINE    BENEVOLENCE. 

one  ever  suspects  that  it  is  put  there  to  incommode,  to 
annoy,  or  to  torment.  Since  then  God  hath  called 
forth  his  consummate  wisdom  to  contrive  and  provide 
for  our  happiness,  and  the  world  appears  to  have 
been  constituted  with  this  design  at  first;  so  long  as 
this  constitution  is  upholden  by  him,  we  must  in  rea- 
son suppose  the  same  design  to  continue. 

The  contemplation  of  universal  nature  rather  be- 
wilders the  mind  than  affects  it.  There  is  always  a 
bright  spot  in  the  prospect,  upon  which  the  eye  rests; 
a  single  example,  perhaps,  by  which  each  man  finds 
himself  more  convinced  than  by  all  others  put  toge- 
ther. I  seem,  for  my  own  part,  to  see  the  benevolence 
of  the  Deity  more  clearly  in  the  pleasures  of  very 
young  children,  than  in  any  thing  in  the  world.  The 
pleasures  of  grown  persons  may  be  reckoned  partly  of 
their  own  procuring;  especially  if  there  has  been  any 
industry  or  contrivance  or  pursuit  to  come  at  them; 
or  if  they  are  founded,  like  music,  painting,  &c.  upon 
any  qualification  of  their  own  acquiring.  But  tire 
pleasures  of  a  healthy  infant  are  so  manifestlv  pro- 
vided for  it  by  another,  and  the  benevolence  of  the 
provision  is  so  unquestionable  that  every  child  I  see 
at  its  sport  affords  to  my  mind  a  kind  of  sensible 
evidence  of  the  finger  of  God,  and  of  the  disposition 
which  directs  it. 

But  the  example  which  strikes  each  man  most 
strongly  is  the  true  example  for  him:  and  hardly  two 
minds  hit  upon  the  same;  which  shows  the  abun- 
dance of  such  examples  about  us. 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  God  wills  and  wishes 
the  happiness  of  his  creatures.  And  this  conclusion 
being  once  established,  we  are  at  liberty  to  go  on  with 
the  rule  built  upon  it,  namely,  "  that  the  method  of 
coining  at  Ihe  will  of  God  concerning  any  action,  by 
the  light  of  nature,  is  to  inquire  into  the  tendency  of 
that  action  to  promote  or  diminish  the  general  hap- 
piness. ' ' 


UTILITY.  61 

CHAPTER  VI. 


So  then  actions  are  to  be  estimated  by  their  ten* 
dency.*  Whatever  is  expedient  is.  right.  iLisJlje 
utility  of  any  moral  rule  alone,  which  constitules..th.e 
obligation  of  it. 

But  to  all  this  there  seems  a  plain  objection,  viz 
that  many  actions  are  useful,  which  no  man  in  his 
senses  will  allow  to  be  right.  There  are  occasions  in 
which  the  hand  of  the  assassin  would  be  very  useful. 
The  present  possessor  of  some  great  estate  employs 
his  influence  and  fortune,  to  annoy,  corrupt,  or  oppress 
all  about  him.  His  estate  would  devolve,  by  his 
death,  to  a  successor  of  an  opposite  character.  It  is 
useful,  therefore,  to  despatch  such  a  one  as  soon  as 
possible  out  of  the  way;  as  the  nighbourhood  will  ex- 
change thereby  a  pernicious  tyrant  for  a  wise  and 
generous  benefactor.  It  might  be  useful  to  rob  a 
miser,  and  give  the  money  to  the  poor;  as  the  money, 
no  doubt,  would  produce  more  happiness  by  being 
laid  out  in  food  and  clothing  for  half  a  dozen  distress- 
ed families,  than  by  continuing  locked  up  in  a  miser's 
chest.  It  may  be  useful  to  get  possession  of  a  place, 
a  piece  of  preferment,  or  of  a  seat  in  Parliament,  by 
bribery  or  false  swearing:  as  by  means  of  them  we 
may  serve  the  public  more  effectually  than  in  our 
private  station.  What  then  shall  we  say  ?  Must  we 
admit  these  actions  to  be  right,  which  would  be  to 

*  Actions  in  the  abstract  are  right  or  wrong,  according  to 
their  tendency;  the  agent  is  virtuous  or  vicious,  according 
to  his  design.  Thus,  if  the  question  be,  Whether  relieving 
common  beggars  be  right  or  wrong  1  we  inquire  into  the 
tendency  of  such  a  conduct  to  the  public  advantage  or  in- 
convenience. Jf  the  question  be,  Whether  a  man  remarka- 
ble for  this  sort  of  bounty  is  to  be  esteemed  virtuous  for  that 
reason'?  we  inquire  into  his  design,  whether  his  liberality 
sprang  from  charity  or  from  ostentation  1  It  is  evident  thut 
our  concern  is  with  ?.c-fions  in  the  abstract. 
VOL.  I  6 


62  UTILITY 

justify  assassination,  plunder,  and  perjury;  or  must 
we  give  up  our  principle,  that  the  criterion  of  right  is 
utility  ? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  do  either 

The  true  answer  is  this;  that  these  actions,  after 
all,  are  not  useful,  and  for  that  reason,  and  that  alone, 
are  not  right. 

To  see  this  point  perfectly,  it  must  be  observed, 
that  the  bad  consequences  of  actions  are  twofold,  par- 
{^ticular  and  general. 

The  particular  bad  consequence  of  an  action  is 
I  the  mischief  which  that  single  action  directly  and 
immediately  occasions. 

The  general  bad  consequence  is  the  violation  of 
kfiome  necessary  or  useful  general  rule. 

Thus,  the  particular  bad  consequence  of  the  assas- 
pination  above  described  is  the  fright  and  pain  which 
the  deceased  underwent;  the  loss  he  suffered  of  life, 
which  is  as  valuable  to  a  bad  man  as  to  a  good  one, 
or  more  so;  the  prejudice  and  affliction  of  which  his 
death  was  the  occasion,  to  his  family,  friends,  and 
dependants. 

The  general  bad  consequence  is  the  violation  of 
this  necessary  general  rule,  that  no  man  be  put  to 
death  for  his  crimes  but  by  public  authority. 

Although,  therefore,  such  an  action  have  no  parti- 
cular bad  consequences,  or  greater  particular  good 
consequences  yet  it  is  not  useful,  by  reason  of  the 
general  consequence,  which  is  of  more  importance, 
and  which  is  evil.  And  the  same  of  the  other  two 
instances,  and  of  a  million  more  which  might  be 
mentioned. 

But  as  this  solution  supposes  that  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world  must  proceed  by  general  rules,  it 
remains  that  we  show  the  necessity  of  this. 


NECESSITY    OF    GENERAL    RULES.  63 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE    NECESSITY    OF    GENERAL    RULES. 

You  cannot  permit  one  action  and  forbid  another 
without  showing  a  difference  between  them.  Conse- 
quently, the  same  sort  of  actions  must  be  generally 
permitted  or  generally  forbidden.  Where,  therefore, 
the  general  permission  of  them  would  be  pernicious, 
it  becomes  necessary  to  lay  down  and  support  the  rule 
which  generally  forbids  them. 

Thus,  to  return  once  more  to  the  case  of  the  assas- 
sin. The  assassin  knocked  the  rich  villain  on  the 
head,  because  he  thought  him  better  out  of  the  way 
than  in  it.  If  you  allow  this  excuse  in  the  present 
instance,  you  must  allow  it  to  all  who  act  in  the  same 
manner  and  from  the  same  motive ;  that  is,  you  must 
allow  every  man  to  kill  any  one  he  meets  whom  he 
thinks  noxious  or  useless;  which,  in  the  event,  would 
be  to  commit  every  man's  life  and  safety  to  the 
spleen,  fury,  and  fanaticism  of  his  neighbour; — a 
disposition  of  affairs  which  would  soon  fill  the  world 
with  misery  and  confusion;  and  ere  long  put  an  end 
to  human  society,  if  not  to  the  human  species. 

The  necessity  of  general  rules  in  human  govern- 
ment is  apparent:  but  whether  the  same  necessity 
subsist  in  the  Divine  economy,  in  that  distribution  of 
rewards,  and  punishments  to  which  a  moralist  looks 
forward,  may  be  doubted. 

I  answer,  that  general  rules  are  necessary  to  every 
moral  government:  and  by  moral  government  I  mean 
any  dispensation  whose  object  is  to  influence  the  con- 
duct of  reasonable  creatures. 

For  if,  of  two  actions  perfectly  similar,  one  be 
punished,  and  the  other  be  rewarded  or  forgiven, 
which  is  the  consequence  of  rejecting  general  rules, 
the  subjects  of  such  a  dispensation  would  no  longer 
know  either  what  to  expect  or  how  to  act.  Rewards 
and  punishments  would  cease  to  be  such — would  be- 
come accidents.  Like  the  stroke  of  a  thunderbolt, 
or  the  discovery  of  a  mine,  like  a  blank  or  a  benefit 


64  NECESSITY    OF    GENERAL    RULES. 

ticket  in  a  lottery,  they  would  occasion  pain  or  plea- 
sure when  they  happened;  but,  folio  wing  in  no  known 
order,  from  any  particular  course  of  action,  they 
could  have  no  previous  influence  or  effect  upon  the 
conduct. 

An  attention  to  general  rules,  therefore,  is  included 
in  the  very  idea  of  reward  and  punishment.  Con- 
sequently, whatever  reason  there  is  to  expect  future 
reward  and  punishment  at  the  hand  of  God,  there  is 
the  same  reason  to  believe  that  he  will  proceed  in  the 
distribution  of  it  by  general  rules. 


Before  we  prosecute  the  consideration  of  general 
consequences  any  further,  it  may  be  proper  to  antici- 
pate a  reflection,  which  will  be  apt  enough  to  suggest 
itself  in  the  progress  of  our  argument. 

As  the  general  consequence  of  an  action,  upon 
which  so  much  of  the  guilt  of  a  bad  action  depends, 
consists  in  the  example ;  it  should  seem  that  if  the 
action  be  done  with  perfect  secrecy,  so  as  to  furnish 
no  bad  example,  that  part  of  the  guilt  drops  off*.  In 
the  case  of  suicide,  for  instance,  if  a  man  can  so 
manage  matters,  as  to  take  away  his  own  life  without 
being  known  or  suspected  to  have  done  so,  he  is  not 
chargeable  with  any  mischief  from  the  example;  nor 
does  his  punishment  seem  necessary,  in  order  to  save 
the  authority  of  any  general  rule. 

In  the  first  place,  those  who  reason  in  this  manner 
do  not  observe  that  they  are  setting  up  a  general 
rule,  of  all  others  the  least  to  be  endured;  namely, 
that  secrecy,  whenever  secrecy  is  practicable,  will 
justify  any  action. 

Were  such  a  rule  admitted,  for  instance  in  the  case 
above  produced;  is  there  not  reason  to  fear  that  peo- 
ple would  be  disappearing  perpetually  ? 

In  the  next  place,  I  would  wish  them  to  be  well 
satisfied  about  the  points  proposed  in  the  following 
queries  : 

1.  Whether  the  Scriptures  do  not  teach  us  to  ex- 


GENERAL    CONSEQUENCES.  65 

pect  that,  at  the  general  judgment  of  the  world,  the 
most  secret  actions  will  be  brought  to  light  ?* 

2.  For  what  purpose  can  this  be,  but  to  make  them 
the  objects  of  reward  and  punishment  ? 

3.  Whether,  being  so  brought  to   light,  they  will 
not  fall  under  the  operation  of  those  equal  and  impar- 
tial rules,  by  which  God  will  deal  with  his  creatures  ? 

They  will  then  become  examples,  whatever  they  be 
now;  and  require  the  same  treatment  from  the  judge 
and  governor  of  the  moral  world,  as  if  they  had  been 
detected  from  the  first. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    CONSIDERATION    OF  GENERAL    CONSEQUEN- 
CES PURSUED. 

THE  general  consequence  of  any  action  may  be  esti  1 
mated,  by  asking  what  would  be  the  consequence,  il 
the  same  sort  of  actions  were  generally  permitted.-rsJ 
But  suppose  they  were,  and  a  thousand  such  actions 
perpetrated  under  this  permission;  is  it  just  to  charge 
a  single  action  with  the  collected  guilt  and  mischief 
of  the  whole  thousand  ?  I  answer,  that  the  reason  for 
prohibiting  and  punishing  an  action  (and  this  reason 
may  be  called  the  guilt  of  the  action,  if  you  please) 
will  always  be  in  proportion  to  the  whole  mischief 
that  would  arise  from  the  general  impunity  and  tole- 
ration of  actions  of  the  same  sort. 

"Whatever  is  expedient  is  right."  But  then  it 
must  be  expedient  on  the  whole,  at  the  long  run,  in 
all  its  effects  collateral  and  remote,  as  well  as  in  those 


*  "  In  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of  men 
by  Jesus  Christ."  Rom.  xi.  16. — "  Judge  nothing  before 
the  time,  until  the  Lord  come,  who  will  bring  to  light  the 
hidden  things  of  darkness,  and  will  make  manifest  the  coun- 
sels of  the  heart."  1  Cor.  iv.  5. 

VOL.  I.  6  * 


66  GENERAL    CONSEQUENCES. 

which  are  immediate  and  direct;  as  it  is  obvious,  that, 
in  computing  consequences,  it  makes  no  difference  in 
what  way  or  at  what  distance  they  ensue. 

To  impress  this  doctrine  on  the  minds  of  young 
readers,  arid  to  teach  them  to  extend  their  views  be- 
yond the  immediate  mischief  of  a  crime,  I  shall  here 
subjoin  a  string  of  instances,  in  which  the  particular 
consequence  is  comparatively  insignificant ;  and  where 
the  malignity  of  the  crime,  and  the  severity  with 
which  human  laws  pursue  it,  is  almost  entirely  found- 
ed upon  the  general  consequence. 

The  particular  consequence  of  coining  is  the  loss 
of  a  guinea  or  of  half  a  guinea  to  the  person  who 
receives  the  counterfeit  money:  the  general  conse- 
quence (by  which  I  mean  the  consequence  that  would 
ensue,  if  the  same  practice  were  generally  permitted) 
is  to  abolish  the  use  of  money. 

The  particular  consequence  of  forgery  is  a  damage 
of  twenty  or  thirty  pounds  to  the  man  who  accepts 
the  forged  bill:  the  general  consequence  is  the  stop- 
page of  paper  currency. 

The  particular  consequence  of  sheep-stealing,  or 
horse-stealing  is  a  loss  to  the  owner,  to  the  amount 
of  the  value  of  the  sheep  or  horse  stolen:  the  general 
consequence  is  that  the  land  could  not  be  occupied, 
nor  the  market  supplied  with  this  kind  of  stock. 

The  particular  consequence  of  breaking  into  a 
house  empty  of  inhabitants  is  the  loss  of  a  pair  *of 
silver  candlesticks  or  a  few  spoons:  the  general  con- 
sequence is  that  nobody  could  leave  their  house 
empty. 

The  particular  consequence  of  smuggling  may  be  a 
deduction  from  the  national  fund  too  minute  for  com- 
putation: the  general  consequence  is  the  destruction 
of  one  entire  branch  of  public  revenue;  a  propor- 
tionable increase  of  the  burden  upon  other  branches; 
and  the  ruin  of  all  fair  and  open  trade  in  the  article 
smuggled. 

The  particular  consequence  of  an  officer's  breaking 
his  parole  is  the  loss  of  a  prisoner,  who  was  possibly 
not  worth  keeping  the  general  conseouence  is  that 


GENERAL    CONSEQUENCES.  67 

this  mitigation  of  captivity  would  be  refused  to  all 
others. 

And  what  proves  incontestably  the  superior  impor- 
tance of  general  consequences  is  that  crimes  are  the 
same,  and  treated  in  the  same  manner,  though  the 
particular  consequence  be  very  different.  The  crime 
and  fate  of  the  house-breaker  is  the  same,  whether 
his  booty  be  five  pounds  or  fifty.  And  the  reason  is 
that  the  general  consequence  is  the  same. 

The  want  of  this  distinction  between  particular  and 
general  consequences,  or  rather,  the  not  sufficiently 
attending  to  the  latter,  is  the  cause  of  that  perplexity 
which  we  meet  with  in  ancient  moralists.  On  the 
one  hand,  they  were  sensible  of  the  absurdity  of  pro- 
nouncing actions  good  or  evil,  without  regard  to  the 
good  or  evil  they  produced.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  were  startled  at  the  conclusion  to  which  a  steady 
adherence  to  consequences  seemed  sometimes  to  con- 
duct them.  To  relieve  this  difficulty  they  contrived 
the  TO  TT^WOV  or  the  honestum,  by  which  terms  they 
meant  to  constitute  a  measure  of  right,  distinct  from 
utility.  Whilst  the  utile  served  them,  that  is,  whilst 
it  corresponded  with  their  habitual  notions  of  the 
rectitude  of  actions,  they  went  by  it.  When  they 
fell  in  with  such  cases  as  those  mentioned  in  the 
sixth  chapter,  they  took  leave  of  their  guide,  and 
resorted  to  the  honestum.  The  only  account  they 
could  give  cf  the  matter  was,  that  these  actions  might 
be  useful;  but,  because  they  were  not  at  the  same 
time  honesta,  they  were  by  no  means  to  be  deemed 
just  or  right. 

From  the  principles  delivered  in  this  and  the  two 
preceding  chapters,  a  maxim  maybe  explained,  which 
is  in  every  man's  mouth,  and  in  most  men's  without 
meaning,  viz.  "  not  to  do  evil,  that  good  may  come;" 
that  is,  let  us  not  violate  a  general  rule  for  the  sake 
of  any  particular  good  consequence  we  may  expect: 
which  is  for  the  most  part  a  salutary  caution,  the  ad- 
vantage seldom  compensating  for  the  violation  of  the 
rule.  Strictly  speaking,  that  cannot  be  "  evil"  from 
which  "  good  comes;"  but  in  this  way,  and  with  a 


W  OF    RIGHT. 

view  to  the  distinction  between  particular  and  general 
consequences,  it  may. 

We  will  conclude  this  subject  of  consequences  with 
the  following  reflection.  A  man  may  imagine,  that 
any  action  of  his,  with  respect  to  the  public,  must  be 
inconsiderable:  so  also  is  the  agent.  If  his  crime 
produce  but  a  small  effect  upon  the  universal  interest, 
his  punishment  or  destruction  bears  a  small  propor- 
tion to  the  sum  of  happiness  and  misery  in  the  crea- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF  RIGHT. 

RIGHT  and  obligation  are  reciprocal;  that  is,  where- 
ever  there  is  a  right  in  one  person,  there  is  a  corres- 
ponding obligation  upon  others.  If  one  man  has  a 
"  right"  to  an  estate;  others  are  "  obliged"  to  abstain 
from  it: — If  parents  have  a  "  right"  to  reverence  from 
their  children;  children  are  "  obliged"  to  reverence 
their  parents; — and  so  in  all  other  instances. 

Now,  because  moral  obligation  depends  as  we  have 
seen,  upon  the  will  of  God;  right,  which  is  correla- 
l    tive  to  it,  must  depend  upon  the  same.     Right  there- 
^fore  signifies  consivleiicy  with  the  will  of  God. 

But  if  the  Divine  will  determine  the  distinction  oJ 
right  and  wrong,  what  else  is  it  but  an  identical  pro- 
position, to  say  of  God,  that  he  acts  right?  or  how 
is  it  possible  to  conceive  even  that  he  should  act 
wrong?  Yet  these  assertions  are  intelligibTs  and  sig- 
nificant. The  case  is  this:  By  virtue  of  the  two 
principles,  that  God  wills  the  happiness  of  his  crea- 
tures, and  that  the  will  of  God  is  the  measure  of  right 
and  wrong,  we  arrive  at  certain  conclusions;  which 
conclusions  become  rules;  and  we  soon  learn  to  pro- 
nounce actions  right  or  wrong,  according  as  they 
agree  or  disagree  with  our  rules,  without  looking  any 
further:  and  when  the  habit  is  once  established  of 
stopping  at  the  rules,  we  can  go  back  and  compare 


DIVISION  OF  RIGHTS.  69 

with  these  rules  even  the  Divine  conduct  itself,  and 
yet  it  may  be  true  (only  not  observed  by  us  at  the 
time)  that  the  rules  themselves  are  deduced  from  the 
Divine  will. 

Right  is  a  quality  of  persons  or  of  actions. 

Of  persons;  as  when  we  say,  such  a  one  has  a 
"right"  to  this  estate;  parents  have  a  "right"  to 
reverence  from  their  children;  the  king  to  allegiance 
from  his  subjects;  masters  have  a  '*  right"  to  their 
servants'  labour;  a  man  has  not  a  "  right"  over  his 
own  life. 

Of  actions;  as  in  such  expressions  as  the  following: 
it  is  "  right"  to  punish  murdgr  with  death;  his  be- 
haviour on  that  occasion  was  "  right;"  it  is  not"  right" 
to  send  an  unfortunate  debtor  to  gaol;  he  did  or 
acted  "  right,"  who  gave  up  his  place,  rather  than 
vote  against  his  judgment. 

In  this  latter  set  of  expressions,  you  may  substitute 
the  definition  o,f  right  above  given  for  the  term  itself; 
e.  g.  it  is  "  consistent  with  the  will  of  God"  to  punish 
murder  with  death; — his  behaviour  on  that  occasion 
was  "  consistent  with  the  will  of  God;" — it  is  not 
"  consistent  with  the  will  of  God"  to  send  an  unfor- 
tunate debtor  to  gaol; — he  did,  or  acted,  "  consis- 
tently with  the  will  of  God,"  who  gave  up  his  place 
rather  than  vote  against  his  judgment. 

In  the  former  set,  you  must  vary  the  construction  a 
little,  when  you  introduce  the  definition  instead  of  the 
term.  Such  a  one  has  a  "  right"  to  this  estate;  that 
is,  it  is  "  consistent  with  the  will  of  God"  that  such  a 
one  should  have  it; — parents  have  a  "  right"  to  reve- 
rence from  their  children;  that  is,  it  is  "  consistent 
with  the  will  of  God"  that  children  should  reverence 
their  parents; — and  the  same  of  the  rest. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   DIVISION   OF  RIGHTS. 

RIGHTS,  when  applied  to  persons,  are 
Natural  or  adventitious: 


70  DIVISION  OF  RIGHTS. 

Alienable  or  unalienable: 
Perfect  or  imperfect. 

1.  Rights  are  natural  or  adventitious 

Natural  rights  are  such  as  would  belong  to  man, 
although  there  subsisted  in  the  world  no  civil  govern- 
ment whatever. 

Adventitious  rights  are  such  as  would  not. 

Natural  rights  are  a  man's  right  to  his  life,  limbs, 
and  liberty;  his  right  to  the  produce  of  his  personal 
labour;  to  the  use,  in  common  with  others,  of  air, 
light,  water.  If  a  thousand  different  persons,  from  a 
thousand  different  corners  of  the  world,  were  cast 
together  upon  a  desert  island,  they  would  from  the 
first  be  every  one  entitfed  to  these  rights. 

Adventitious  rights  are  the  right  of  a  king  over 
his  subjects;  of  a  general  over  his  soldiers;  of  a  judge 
over  the  life  and  liberty  of  a  prisoner;  a  right  to  elect 
or  appoint  magistrates,  to  impose  taxes,  decide  dis- 
putes, direct  the  descent  or  disposition  of  property;  a 
right,  in  a  word,  in  any  one  man,  or  particular  body 
of  men,  to  make  laws  and  regulations  for  the  rest. 
For  none  of  these  rights  would  exist  in  the  newly  in- 
habited island. 

And  here  it  will  be  asked,  how  adventitious  rights 
are  created;  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  how  any 
new  rights  can  accrue  from  the  establishment  of  civil 
society?  as  rights  of  all  kinds,  we  remember,  depend 
upon  the  will  of  God,  and  civil  society  is  but  the  or- 
dinance and  institution  of  man.  For  the  solution  of 
this  difficulty,  we  must  return  to  our  first  principles 
God  wills  the  happiness  of  mankind;  and  the  exist- 
ence of  civil  society,  as  conducive  to  that  happiness. 
Consequently,  many  things,  which  are  useful  for  the 
support  of  civil  society  in  general,  or  for  the  conduct 
and  conservation  of  particular  societies  already  esta- 
blished, are,  for  that  reason,  "  consistent  with  the  will 
of  God,"  or  "  right,"  which,  without  that  reason,  i.  e. 
without  the  establishment  of  civil  society,  would  not 
have  been  so. 

From  whence  also  it  appears,  that  adventitious 
rights,  though  immediately  derived  from  human  ap- 
pointment, are  not,  for  that  reason,  less  sacred  than 


DIVISION  OF  RIGHTS.  71 

natural  rights,  nor  the  obligation  to  respect  them  less 
cogent.  They  both  ultimately  rely  upon  the  same 
authority — the  will  of  God.  Such  a  man  claims  a 
right  to  a  particular  estate.  He  can  show,  it  is  true, 
nothing  for  his  right,  but  a  rule  of  the  civil  commu- 
nity to  whioh  he  belongs;  and  this  rule  may  be  arbi- 
trary, capricious,  and  absurd.  Notwithstanding  all 
this,  there  would  be  the  same  sin  in  dispossessing  the 
man  of  his  estate  by  craft  or  violence,  as  if  it  had 
been  assigned  to  him,  like  the  partition  of  the  country 
amongst  the  twelve  tribes,  by  the  immediate  designa- 
tion and  appointment  of  Heaven. 

2.  Rights  are  alienable  or  unalienable. 
Which  terms  explain  themselves. 

The  right  we  have  to  most  of  those  things  which  we 
call  property,  as  houses,  lands,  money,  &c.  is  alienable. 

The  right  of  a  prince  over  his  people,  of  a  husband 
Dver  his  wife,  of  a  master  over  his  servant,  is  gene- 
rally and  naturally  unalienable. 

The  distinction  depends  upon  the  mode  of  acquir- 
ing the  right.  If  the  right  originate  from  a  contract, 
and  be  limited  to  the  person  by  the  express  terms  of 
the  contract,  or  by  the  common  interpretation  of  such 
contracts  (which  is  equivalent  to  an  express  stipula- 
tion,) or  by  a  personal  condition  annexed  to  the  right; 
then  it  is  unalienable.  In  all  other  cases  it  is  aliena- 
ble. 

The  ritht  to  civil  libertjr  is  alienable;  though  in 
the  vehemence  of  men's  zeal  for  it,  and  the  language 
of  some  political  remonstrances,  it  has  often  been  pro- 
nounced to  be  an  unalienable  right.  The  true  reason 
why  mankind  hold  in  detestation  the  memory  of  those 
who  have  sold  their  liberty  to  a  tyrant  is,  that,  toge- 
ther with  their  own,  they  sold  commonly,  or  endan- 
gered, the  liberty  of  others;  which  certainly  they  had 
no  right  to  dispose  of. 

3.  Rights  are  perfect  or  imperfect. 

Perfect  rights  may  be  asserted  by  force,  or,  what  in 
civil  society  comes  into  the  place  of  private  force,  by 
course  of  law. 

Imperfect  rights  may  not. 

Examples  of  perfect  rights. — A  man's   right  to   his 


72  DIVISION  OF  RIGHTS. 

life,  person,  house;  for,  if  these  be  attacked,  he  may 
repel  the  attack  by  instant  violence,  or  punish  the 
aggressor  by  law:  a  man's  righi  to  his  estate,  furni- 
ture, clothes,  money,  and  to  all  ordinary  articles  of 
property;  for,  if  they  be  injuriously  taken  from  him, 
he  may  compel  the  author  of  the  injury  to  make  resti 
tution  or  satisfaction. 

Examples  of  imperfect  rights. — In  elections  or  ap- 
pointments to  offices,  where  the  qualifications  a  re  pre- 
scribed, the  best  qualified  candidate  has  a  right  to 
success;  yet,  if  he  be  rejected,  he  has  no  remedy. 
He  can  neither  seize  the  office  by  force,  nor  obtain 
redress  at  law:  his  right  therefore  is  imperfect.  A 
poor  neighbour  has  a  right  to  relief;  yet  if  it  be 
refused  him,  he  must  not  extort  it.  A  benefactor  has 
a  right  to  returns  of  gratitude  from  the  person  he  has 
obliged;  yet,  if  he  meet  with  none,  he  must  acquiesce 
Children  have  a  right  to  affection  and  education  from 
their  parents;  and  parents,  on  their  part,  to  duty  and 
reverence  from  their  children:  yet  if  these  rights  be 
on  either  side  withholden,  there  is  no  compulsion  by 
which  they  can  be  enforced. 

It  may  be  at  first  view  difficult  to  apprehend  how  a 
person  should  have  a  right  to  a  thing,  and  yet  have 
no  right  to  use  the  means  necessary  to  obtain  it.  This 
difficulty,  like  most  others  in  morality,  is  resolvable 
into  the  necessity  of  general  rules.  The  reader  recol- 
lects, that  a  person  is  said  to  have  a  "  right"  to  a 
thing,  when  it  is  "  consistent  with  the  will  of  God" 
that  he  should  possess  it.  So  that  the  question  is 
reduced  to  this:  How  it  comes  to*  pass  that  it  should 
be  consistent  with  the  will  of  God  that  a  person  should 
possess  a  thing,  and  yet  not  be  consistent  with  the 
same  \\ill  that  he  should  use  force  to  obtain  it  ?  The 
answer  is,  that  by  reason  of  the  indetcrminateness, 
either  of  the  object,  or  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
right,  the  permission  offeree  in  this  case  would,  in  its 
consequence,  lead  to  the  permission  of  force  in  other 
cases,  where  there  existed  no  right  at  all.  The  can- 
didate above  described  has,  no  doubt,  a  right  to  suc- 
cess^  but  his  right  depends  upon  his  qualifications, 
for  instance,  upon  his  comparative  virtue,  learning, 


DIVISION  OF  RIGHTS.  73 

&c  there  must  be  somebody  therefore  to  compare 
them.  The  existence,  degree,  and  respective  import- 
ance of  these  qualifications  are  all  indeterminate: 
there  must  be  somebody  therefore  to  determine  them. 
To  allow  the  candidate  to  demand  success  by  force  is 
to  make  him  the  judge  of  his  own  qualifications.  You 
cannot  do  this  but  you  must  make  all  other  candidates 
the  same;  which  would  open  a  door  to  demands  with- 
out number,  reason,  or  right.  In  like  manner,  a  poor 
man  has  a  right  to  relief  from  the  rich;  but  the  mode, 
season,  and  quantum  of  that  relief,  who  shall  con- 
tribute to  it,  or  how  much,  are  not  ascertained.  Yet 
these  points  must  be  ascertained,  before  a  claim  to 
relief  can  be  prosecuted  by  force.  For,  to  allow  the 
poor  to  ascertain  them  for  themselves  would  be  to 
expose  property  to  so  many  of  these  claims,  that  it 
would  lose  its  value,  or  rather  its  nature;  that  is,  cease 
indeed  to  be  property.  The  same  observation  holds 
of  all  other  cases  of  imperfect  rights;  not  to  mention 
that,  in  the  instances  of  gratitude,  affection,  reverence, 
and  the  like,  force  is  excluded  by  the  very  idea  of  the 
duty,  which  must  be  voluntary,  or  cannot  exist  at  all. 

Wherever  the  right  is  imperfect,  the  corresponding 
obligation  is  so  too.  I  am  obliged  to  prefer  the  best 
candidate,  to  relieve  the  poor,  be  grateful  to  my  bene- 
factors, take  care  of  my  children,  and  reverence  my 
parents;  but  in  all  these  cases  my  obligation,  like 
their  right,  is  imperfect. 

I  call  these  obligations  "imperfect,"  in  conformity 
to  the  established  language  of  writers  upon  the  sub- 
ject. The  term,  however,  seems  ill  chosen,  on  this 
account,  that  it  leads  many  to  imagine  that  there  is 
less  guilt  in  the  violation  of  an  imperfect  obligation 
than  of  a  perfect  one;  which  is  a  groundless  notion^ 
For  an  obligation  being  perfect  or  imperfect,  deter- 
mines only  whether  violence  may  or  may  not  be  em- 
ployed to  enforce  it;  and  determines  nothing  else. 
The  degree  of  guilt  incurred  by  violating  the  obliga- 
tion is  a  different  thing,  and  is  determined  by  circum- 
stances altogether  independent  of  this  distinction.  A 
man  who  by  a  partial,  prejudiced,  or  corrupt  vote,  dis- 
appoints a  worthy  candidate  of  a  station  in  life,  upon 

VOL.   I.  7 


74  GENERAL  RIGHTS  OF  MANKIND. 

which  his  hopes,  possibly,  or  livelihood,  depended, 
and  who  thereby  grievously  discourages  merit  and 
emulation  in  others,  commits,  I  am  persuaded,  a  much 
greater  crime  than  if  he  filched  a  book  out  of  a  library, 
or  picked  a  pocket  of  a  handkerchief;  though  in  the 
one  case  he  violates  only  an  imperfect  right,  in  the 
other  a  perfect  one. 

As  positive  precepts  are  often  indeterminate  in  their 
extent,  and  as  the  indeterminateness  of  an  obligation 
is  that  which  mak'3s  it  imperfect;  it  comes  to  pass, 
that  positive  precepts  commonly  produce  an  imperfect 
obligation. 

Negative  precepts  or  prohibitions,  being  generally 
precise,  constitute  accordingly  perfect  obligations. 

The  fifth  commandment  is  positive,  and  the  duty 
which  results  from  it  is  imperfect. 

The  sixth  commandment  is  negative,  and  imposes 
a  perfect  obligation. 

Religion  and  virtue  find  their  principal  exercise 
among  the  imperfect  obligations;  the  laws  of  civil  so- 
ciety taking  pretty  good  care  of  the  rest. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

THE   GENERAL  RIGHTS   OF  MANKIND. 

BY  the  General  Rights  of  Mankind,  I  mean  the 
rights  which  belong  to  the  species  collectively;  the 
original  stock,  as  I  may  say,  which  they  have  since 
distributed  an:ong  themselves. 

These  are, 

.    1.   A  right  to  the  fruits  or  vegetable  produce  of  the 
earth. 

The  insensible  parts  of  the  creation  are  incapablu 
of  injury;  and  it  is  nugatory  to  inquire  into  the  right, 
where  the  use  can  be  attended  with  no  injury.  But  it 
may  be  worth  observing,  for  the  sake  of  an  inference 
which  will  appear  below,  that  as  God  had  created  us 
with  a  want  and  desire  of  food,  arid  provided  things 
suited  by  their  nature  to  sustain  and  satisfy  us,  we 


GENERAL  RIGHTS  OF  MANKIND.  75 

may  fairly  presume,  that  he  intended  we  should  apply 
these  things  to  that  purpose. 

2.  A  right  to  the  flesh  of  animals. 

This  is  a  very  different  claim  from  the  former. 
Some  excuse  seems  necessary  for  the  pain  and  loss 
which  we  occasion  to  brutes,  by  restraining  them  of 
their  liberty,  mutilating  their  bodies,  and,  at  last, 
putting  an  end  to  their  lives  (which  we  suppose  to  be 
the  whole  of  their  existence,)  for  our  pleasure  or  con- 
veniency. 

The  reasons  alleged  in  vindication  of  this  practice 
are  the  following:  that  the  several  species  of  brutes 
being  created  to  prey  upon  one  another,  affords  a  kind 
of  analogy  to  prove  that  the  human  species  were  in- 
tended to  feed  upon  them;  that,  if  let  alone,  they 
would  overrun  the  earth,  and  exclude  mankind  from 
the  occupation  of  it;  that  they  are  requited  for  what 
they  suffer  at  our  hands,  by  our  care  and  protection. 

Upon  which  reasons  I  would  observe,  that  the 
analogy  contended  for  is  extremely  lame ;  since  brutes 
have  no  power  to  support  life  by  any  other  means, 
and  since  we  have;  for  the  whole  human  species 
might  subsist  entirely  upon  fruit,  pulse,  herbs,  and 
roots,  as  many  tribes  of  Hindoos  actually  do.  The 
two  other  reasons  may  be  valid  reasons,  as  far  as  they 
go;  for,  no  doubt,  if  man  had  been  supported  entirely 
by  vegetable  food,  a  great  part  of  those  animals  which 
die  to  furnish  his  table  would  never  have  lived:  but 
they  by  no  means  justify  our  right  over  the  lives  of 
brutes  to  the  extent  in  which  we  exercise  it.  What 
danger  is  there,  for  instance,  of  fish  interfering  with 
us,  in  the  occupation  of  their  element  ?  or  what  do  we 
contributes  to  their  support  or  preservation  ? 

It  seem  to  me,  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  defend 
this  right  by  any  arguments  which  the  light  and  order 
of  nature  afford;  and  that  we  are  beholden  for  it  to 
the  permission  recorded  in  Scripture,  Gen.  ix.  1,  2,  3. 
"  And  God  blessed  Noah  and  his  sons,  and  said  unto 
them,  Be  fruitful  and  multiply,  and  replenish  the 
earth:  and  the  fear  of  you,  and  the  dread  of  you,  shall 
be  upon  every  beast  of  the  earth,  and  upon  every  fowl 
of  the  air,  and  upon  all  that  moveth  upon  the  earth, 


76  GENERAL  RIGHTS  OF  MANKIND. 

and  upon  all  the  fishes  of  the  sea;  into  your  hand  are 
they  delivered;  every  moving  thing  shall  be  meat  for 
you;  even  as  the  green  herb,  have  I  given  you  all 
things."  To  Adam  and  his  posterity  had  been  gran  >- 
ed,  at  the  creation,  "every  green  herb  for  meat,"  and 
nothing  more.  In  the  last  clause  of  the  passage  now 
produced,  the  old  grant  is  recited,  and  extended  to  the 
flesh  of  animals;  "  even  as  the  green  herb,  have  I 
given  you  all  things."  But  this  was  not  till  after  the 
flood;  the  inhabitants  of  the  antediluvian  world  had 
therefore  no  such  permission,  that  we  know  of.  Whe- 
ther they  actually  refrained  from  the  flesh  of  animals, 
is  another  question.  Abel,  we  read,  was  a  keeper  of 
sheep;  and  for  what  purpose  he  kept  them,  except  for 
food,  is  difficult  to  say  (unless  it  were  sacrifices:) 
might  not,  however,  some  of  the  stricter  sects  among 
the  antediluvians  be  scrupulous  as  to  this  point  ?  and 
might  not  Noah  and  his  family  be  of  this  description? 
for  it  is  not  probable  that  God  would  publish  a  per- 
mission to  authorize  a  practice  which  had  never  been 
disputed. 

Wanton,  and,  what  is  worse,  studied  cruelty  to 
brutes  is  certainly  wrong,  as  coming  within  none  of 
these  reasons. 


From  reason  then,  or  revelation,  or  from  both  toge- 
ther, it  appears  to  be  God  Almighty's  intention,  that 
the  productions  of  the  earth  should  be  applied  to  the 
sustentation  of  human  life.  Consequently  all  waste 
and  misapplication  of  these  productions  is  contrary  to 
the  Divine  intention  and  will;  and  therefore  wrong, 
for  the  same  reason  that  any  other  crime  is  so:  Such 
as,  what  is  related  of  William  the  Conqueror,  the  con- 
verting of  twenty  manors  into  a  forest  for  hunting, 
or,  which  is  not  much  better,  suffering  them  to  con- 
tinue in  that  state;  or,  the  letting  of  large  tracts  of 
land  lie  barren,  because  the  owner  cannot  cultivate 
them,  nor  will  part  with  them  to  those  who  can;  or 
destroying,  or  suffering  to  perish,  great  part  of  an 
article  of  human  provision,  in  order  to  enhance  the 
price  of  the  remainder  (which  is  said  to  have  been, 


GENERAL  RIGHTS  OF  MANKIND  77 

till  lately,  the  case  with  fish  caught  upon  the  English 
coast;)  or  diminishing  the  breed  of  animals,  by  a 
wanton  or  improvident  consumption  of  the  young,  as 
of  the  spawn  of  shell  fish,  or  the  fry  of  salmon,  by  the 
use  of  unlawful  nets,  or  at  improper  seasons.  To  this 
head  may  also  be  referred  what  is  the  same  evil  in  a 
smaller  way,  the  expending  of  human  food  on  super- 
fluous dogs  or  horses;  and  lastly,  the  reducing  of  the 
quantity,  in  order  to  alter  the  quality,  and  to  alter  it 
generally  for  the  worse;  as  the  distillation  of  spirits 
from  bread  corn,  the  boiling  down  of  solid  meat  for 
sauces,  essences,  &c. 

This  seems  to  be  the  lesson  which  our  Saviour, 
after  his  manner,  inculcates,  when  he  bids  his  disci- 
ples "  gather  up  the  fragments,  that  nothing  be  lost." 
And  it  opens  indeed  a  new  field  of  duty.  Schemes  of 
wealth  or  profit  prompt  the  active  part  of  mankind  to 
cast  about,  how  they  may  convert  their  property  to 
the  most  advantage;  and  their  own  advantage,  and 
that  of  the  public,  commonly  concur.  But  it  has  not 
as  yet  entered  into  the  minds  of  mankind  to  reflect, 
that  it  is  a  duty  to  add  what  we  can  to  the  common 
stock  of  provision,  by  extracting  out  of  our  estates  the 
most  they  will  yield;  or  that  it  is  any  sin  to  neglect 
this. 

From  the  same  intention  of  God  Almighty,  we  also 
deduce  another  conclusion,  namely,  "  that  nothing 
ought  to  be  made  exclusive  property,  which  can  be 
conveniently  enjoyed  in  common." 

It  is  the  general  intention  of  God  Almighty,  that 
the  produce  of  the  earth  be  applied  to  the  use  of  man. 
This  appears  from  the  constitution  of  nature,  or,  if  you 
will,  from  his  express  declaration;  and  this  is  all  that 
appears  at  first.  Under  this  general  donation,  one 
man  has  the  same  right  as  another.  You  pluck  an 
apple  from  a  tree,  or  take  a  lamb  from  a  flock,  for 
your  immediate  use  and  nourishment,  and  I  do  the 
same;  and  we  both  plead  for  what  we  do,  the  general 
intention  of  the  Supreme  Proprietor.  So  far  all  is 
right:  but  you  cannot  claim  the  whole  tree  or  the 
whole  flock,  and  exclude  me  from  any  share  of  them, 
and  plead  this  general  intention  for  what  you  do. 

VOL    X.  7* 


73  GENERAL  RIGHTS  OF  MANKIND. 

The  plea  will  not  serve  you;  you  must  show  some- 
tiling  more.  You  must  show,  by  probable  arguments, 
at  least,  that  it  is  God's  intention  that  these  things 
should  be  parcelled  out  to  individuals;  and  that  the 
established  distribution,  under  which  you  claim, 
should  be  upholden.  Show  me  this,  and  I  am  satis- 
fied. But  until  this  be  shown,  the  general  intention, 
which  has  been  nade  to  appear,  and  which  is  all  that 
does  appear,  must  prevail;  and,  under  that,  my  title 
is  as  good  as  yours.  Now  there  is  no  argument  to 
induce  such  a  presumption,  but  one;  that  the  thing 
cannot  be  enjoyed  at  all,  or  enjoyed  with  the  same,  or 
with  nearly  the  same  advantage,  while  it  continues  in 
common  as  when  appropriated.  This  is  true,  where 
there  is  not  enough  for  all,  or  where  the  article  in 
question  requires  care  or  labour  in  the  production  or 
preservation;  but  where  no  such  reason  obtains,  and 
the  thing  is  in  its  nature  capable  of  being  enjoyed  by 
as  many  as  will,  it  seems  an  arbitrary  usurpation  upon 
the  rights  of  mankind,  to  confine  the  use  of  it  to  any. 

If  a  medicinal  spring  were  discovered  in  a  piece  of 
ground  which  was  private  property,  copious  enough 
for  every  purpose  to  which  it  could  be  applied,  I  would 
award  a  compensation  to  the  owner  of  the  field,  and  a 
liberal  profit  to  the  author  of  the  discovery,  especially 
if  he  had  bestowed  pains  or  expense  upon  the  search: 
but  I  question  whether  any  human  laws  would  be 
justified,  or  would  justify  the  owner,  in  prohibiting 
mankind  from  the  use  of  the  water,  or  setting  such  a 
price  upon  it  as  would  almost  amount  to  a  prohibition. 

If  there  be  fisheries  which  are  inexhaustible,  as  the 
cod  fishery  upon  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland,  and  the 
herring  fishery  in  the  British  seas,  are  said  to  be;  then 
all  those  conventions,  by  which  one  or  two  nations 
claim  to  themselves,  and  guarantee  to  each  other,  the 
exclusive  enjoyment  of  these  fisheries,  are  so  many  en- 
croachments upon  the  general  rights  of  mankind. 

Upon  the  same  principle  may  be  determined  a 
question,  which  makes  a  'great  figure  in  books  of 
natural  law,  uiruni  mare  sit  liberuml  that  is,  as  1 
understand  it,  whether  the  exclusive  right  of  navi- 
gating particular  seas,  or  a  control  over  the  naviga- 
tion of  these  seas,  can  be  claimed,  consistently  with 


GENERAL  RIGHTS  OF  MANKIND  79 

the  law  of  nature,  by  any  nation  ?  What  is  necessary 
for  each  nation's  safety,  we  allow;  as  their  own  bays, 
creeks,  and  harbours,  the  sea  contiguous  to,  that  is, 
within  cannon-shot,  or  three  leagues,  of  their  coast; 
and  upon  this  principle  of  safety  (if  upon  any  prin- 
ciple) must  be  defended  the  claim  of  the  Venetian 
State  to  the  Adriatic,  of  Denmark  to  the  Baltic  Sea, 
and  of  Great  Britain  to  the  seas  which  invest  the 
island.  But  when  Spain  asserts  a  right  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  or  Portugal  to  the  Indian  Seas,  or  when  any 
nation  extends  its  pretensions  much  beyond  the  limits 
of  its  own  territories,  they  erect  a  claim  which  inter 
feres  with  the  benevolent  designs  of  Providence,  and 
which  no  human  authority  can  justify. 

3.  Another  right,  which  may  be  called  a  general 
right,  as  it  is  incidental  to  every  man  who  is  in  a 
situation  to  claim  it,  is  the  right  of  extreme  neces- 
sity; by  which  is  meant,  a  right  to  use  or  destroy 
another's  property,  when  it  is  necessary  for  our  own 
preservation  to  do  so;  as  a  right  to  take,  without  or 
against  the  owner's  leave,  the  first  food,  clothes,  or 
shelter  we  meet  with,  when  we  are  in  danger  of  perish- 
ing through  want  of  them;  a  right  to  throw  goods 
overboard,  to  save  the  ship;  or  to  pull  down  a  house, 
in  order  to  stop  the  progress  of  afire;  and  a  few  other 
instances  of  the  same  kind.  Of  which  right  the  foun- 
dation seems  to  be  this:  that  when  property  was  first 
instituted,  the  institution  was  not  intended  to  operate 
to  the  destruction  of  any;  therefore,  when  such  con- 
sequences would  follow,  all  regard  to  it  is  superseded. 
Or  rather,  perhaps,  these  are  the  few  cases,  where 
the  particular  consequence  exceeds  the  general  conse- 
quence; where  the  remote  mischief  resulting  from 
the  violation  of  the  general  rule  is  overbalanced  by 
the  immediate  advantage. 

Restitution  however  is  due,  when  in  our  power: 
because  the  laws  of  property  are  to  be  adhered  to,  so 
far  as  consists  with  safety;  and  because  restitution, 
which  is  one  of  those  laws,  supposes  the  danger  to  be 
over.  But  what  is  to  be  restored  ?  Not  the  full  value 
of  the  property  destroyed,  but  what  it  was  worth  at 
the  time  of  destroying  it;  which,  considering  the 
danger  it  was  in  of  perishing,  might  be  very  little. 


BOOK  III. 

RELATIVE  DUTIES. 


PART  I. 

OF   RELATIVE    DUTIES    WHICH   ARE    DETERMINATE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF    PROPERTY. 

IF  you  should  see  a  flock  of  pigeons  in  a  field  of 
corn;  and  if  (instead  of  each  picking  where  and  what 
it  liked,  taking  just  as  much  as  it  wanted,  and  no  more) 
you  should  see  ninety-nine  of  them  gathering  all  they 
got  into  a  heap;  reserving  nothing  for  themselves  but 
the  chaff  and  the  refuse;  keeping  this  heap  for  one, 
and  that  the  weakest,  perhaps  worst,  pigeon  of  the 
flock;  sitting  round,  and  looking  on,  all  the  winter, 
whilst  this  one  was  devouring,  throwing  about,  and 
wasteing  it;  and  if  a  pigeon,  more  hardy  or  hungry 
than  the  rest,  touched  a  grain  of  the  hoard,  all  the 
others  instantly  flying  upon  it,  and  tearing  it  to 
pieces; — if  you  should  see  this,  you  would  see  no- 
thing more  than  what  is  every  day  practised  and 
established  among  men.  Among  men,  you  see  the 
ninety  and  nine  toiling  and  scraping  together  a  heap 
of  superfluities  for  one  (and  this  one  too,  oftentimes, 


INSTITUTION    OF    PROPERTY.  81 

the  feeblest  and  worst  of  the  whole  set — a  child,  a 
woman,  a  madman,  or  a  fool;)  getting  nothing  for 
themselves  all  the  while,  but  a  little  of  the  coarsest  of 
the  provision  which  their  own  industry  produces; 
looking  quietly  on,  while  they  see  the  fruits  of  all 
their  labour  spent  or  spoiled;  and  if  one  of  the  num- 
ber take  or  touch  a  particle  of  the  hoard,  the  others 
joining  against  him,  and  hanging  him  for  the  theft. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    USE    OF    THE    INSTITUTION    OF    PROPERTY. 

THERE  must  be  some  very  important  advantages  to 
account  for  an  institution,  which,  in  the  view  of  it 
above  given,  is  so  paradoxical  and  unnatural. 

The  principal  of  these  advantages  are  the  follow- 
ing: 

1.  It  increases  the  produce  of  the  earth. 

The  earth,  in  climates  like  ours,  produces  little 
without  cultivation:  and  none  would  be  found  willing 
to  cultivate  the  ground,  if  others  were  to  be  admitted 
to  an  equal  share  of  the  produce.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  care  of  flocks  and  herds  of  tame  animals. 

Crabs  and  acorns,  red  deer,  rabbits,  game,  and  fish 
are  all  which  we  should  have  to  subsist  upon  in  this 
country,  if  we  trusted  to  the  spontaneous  productions 
of  the  soil;  and  it  fares  not  much  better  with  other 
countries.  A  nation  of  North  American  savages,  con- 
sisting of  two  or  three  hundred,  will  take  up,  and  be 
half  starved  upon  a  tract  of  land  which,  in  Europe, 
and  with  European  management,  would  be  sufficient 
for  the  maintainance  of  as  many  thousands. 

In  some  fertile  soils,  together  with  great  abundance 
offish  upon  their  coasts,  and  in  regions  where  clothes 
are  unnecessary,  a  considerable  degree  of  population 
may  subsist  without  property  in  land,  which  is  the 
case  in  the  islands  of  Otaheite:  but  in  less  favoured 
situations,  as  in  the  country  of  New  Zealand,  though 


82  INSTITUTION    OF    PROPERTY. 

this  sort  of  property  obtain  in  a  small  degree,  the  in- 
habitants, for  want  of  a  more  secure  and  regular  esta- 
blishment of  it,  arc  driven  oftentimes  by  the  scarcity 
of  provision  to  devour  one  another. 

2.  It   preserves  the   produce  of  the  earth  to  matu- 
rity. 

We  may  judge  what  would  be  the  effects  of  a  com- 
munity of  right  to  the  productions  of  the  earth,  from 
the  trifling  specimens  which  we  see  of  it  at  present. 
A  cherry  tree  in  a  hedgerow,  nuts  in  a  wood,  the  grass 
of  an  unstinted  pasture,  are  seldom  of  much  advan- 
tage to  any  body,  because  people  do  not  wait  for  the 
proper  season  of  reaping  them.  Corn,  if  any  were 
sown,  would  never  ripen;  lambs  and  calves  would 
never  grow  up  to  sheep  and  cows,  because  the  first 
person  that  met  them  would  reflect  that  he  had  better 
take  them  as  they  are,  than  leave  them  for  another. 

3.  It  prevents  contests. 

War  and  waste,  tumult  and  confusion,  must  be  un- 
avoidable and  eternal,  where  there  is  not  enough  for 
all,  and  where  there  are  no  rules  to  adjust  the  division. 

4.  It  improves  the  conveniency  of  living. 

This  it  does  two  ways.  It  enables  mankind  to 
divide  themselves  into  distinct  professions;  which  is 
impossible,  unless  a  man  can  exchange  the  produc- 
tions of  his  own  art  for  what  he  wants  from  others  ; 
and  exchange  implies  property.  Much  of  the  advan- 
tage of  civilized  over  savage  life  depends  upon  this. 
When  a  man  is  from  necessity  his  own  tailor,  tent- 
maker,  carpenter,  cook,  huntsman,  and  fisherman,  it 
is  not  probable  that  he  will  be  expert  at  any  of  his 
callings.  Hence  the  rude  habitations,  furniture,  cloth- 
ing, and  implements  of  savages;  and  the  tedious 
length  of  time  which  all  their  operations  require. 

It  likewise  encourages  those  arts  by  which  the  ac- 
commodations of  human  life  are  supplied,  by  appro- 
priating to  the  artist  the  benefit  of  his  discoveries  and 
improvements;  without  which  appropriation  ingenuity 
will  never  be  exerted  with  effect. 

Upon  these  several  accounts  we  may  venture,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  to  pronounce  that  even  the  poorest 
ind  the  worst  provided,  in  countries  where  property 


HISTORY    OF    PROPERTY.  83 

and  the  consequences  of  property  prevail,  are  in  a 
better  situation,  with  respect  to  food,  raiment,  houses, 
and  what  are  called  the  necessaries  of  life,  than  any 
are  in  places  where  most  things  remain  in  common. 

The  balance,  therefore,  upon  the  whole,  must  pre- 
ponderate in  favour  of  property  with  a  manifest  and 
great  excess. 

Inequality  of  property,  in  the  degree  in  which  it 
exists  in  most  countries  of  Europe,  abstractedly  con- 
sidered, is  an  evil;  but  it  is  an  evil  which  flows  from 
those  rules  concerning  the  acquisition  and  disposal  of 
property,  by  which  men  are  incited  to  industry,  and 
by  which  the  object  of  their  industry  is  rendered  se- 
cure and  valuable.  If  there  be  any  great  inequality 
unconnected  with  this  origin,  it  ought  to  be  corrected 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    HISTORY    OF    PROPERTY. 

THE  first  objects  of  property  were  the  fruits  which 
a  man  gathered,  and  the  wild  animals  he  caught;  next 
to  these,  the  tents  or  houses  which  he  built,  the  tools 
he  made  use  of  to  catch  or  prepare  his  food;  and 
afterwards  weapons  of  war  and  offence.  Many  of 
the  savage  tribes  in  North  America  have  advanced 
no  further  than  this  yet ;  for  they  are  said  to  reap  their 
harvest,  and  return  the  produce  of  their  market  with 
foreigners,  into  the  common  hoard  or  treasury  of  the 
tribe.  Flocks  and  herds  of  tame  animals  soon  became 
property:  Abel,  the  second  from  Adam,  was  a  keeper 
of  sheep;  sheep  and  oxen,  camels  and  asses,  com- 
posed the  wealth  of  the  Jewish  patriarchs,  as  they  do 
etill  of  the  modern*  Arabs.  As  the  world  was  first 
peopled  in  the  East,  where  there  existed  a  great 
scarcity  of  water,  wells  probably  were  next  made 
property;  as  we  learn  from  the  frequent  and  serious 
mention  of  them  in  the  Old  Testament;  the  conten- 


84  HISTORY    OP    PROPERTY. 

tions  and  treaties  about  them;*  and  from  its  being 
recorded,  among  the  most  memorable  achievements 
of  very  eminent  men,  that  they  dug  or  discovered  a 
well.  Land,  which  is  now  so  important  a  part  of 
property,  which  alone  our  laws  call  real  property,  and 
regard  upon  all  occasions  with  such  peculiar  atten- 
tion, was  probably  not  made  property  in  any  country, 
till  long  after  the  institution  of  many  other  species  of 
property,  that  is,  till  the  country  became  populous, 
and  tillage  began  to  be  thought  of.  The  first  parti- 
tion of  an  estate  which  we  read  of  was  that  which 
took  place  between  Abram  and  Lot,  and  was  one  of 
the  simplest  imaginable:  "  If  thou  wilt  take  the  left 
hand,  then  I  will  go  to  the  right;  or  if  thou  depart 
to  the  right  hand,  then  I  will  go  to  the  left,"  There 
are  no  traces  of  property  in  land  in  Caesar's  account 
of  Britain;  little  of  it  in  the  history  of  the  Jewish 
patriarchs;  none  of  it  found  amongst  the  nations  of 
North  America;  the  Scythians  are  expressly  said  to 
have  appropriated  their  cattle  and  houses,  but  to  have 
left  their  land  in  common. 

Property  in  immovables  continued  at  first  no  longer 
than  the  occupation;  that  is,  so  long  as  a  man's  fam  ly 
continued  in  possession  of  a  cave,  or  whilst  his  flocks 
depastured  upon  a  neighbouring  hill,  no  one  attempt- 
ed, or  thought  he  had  a  right,  to  disturb  or  drive  them 
out;  but  when  the  man  quitted  his  cave,  or  changed 
his  pasture,  the  first  who  found  them  unoccupied  en- 
tered upon  them,  by  the  same  title  as  his  predecessors ; 
and  made  way  in  his  turn  for  any  one  that  happened 
to  succeed  him.  All  more  permanent  property  in  land 
was  probably  posterior  to  civil  government  and  to 
laws;  and  therefore  settled  by  these,  or  according  to 
the  will  of  the  reigning  chief. 


*  Genesis,  xxi.  25 ;  xxvi.  18. 


RIGHT    OF    PROPERTY.  86 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IN  WHAT    THE    RIGHT    OF    PROPERTY    IB 
FOUNDED. 

WE  now  speak  of  Property  in  Land:  and  there  is  a 
difficulty  in  explaining  the  origin  of  this  property 
consistently  with  the  law  of  nature;  for  the  land  was 
once,  no  doubt,  common;  and  the  question  is,  how 
any  particular  part  of  it  could  justly  be  taken  out  of 
the  common,  and  so  appropriated  to  the  first  owner, 
as  to  give  him  a  better  right  to  it  than  others;  and, 
what  is  more,  a  right  to  exclude  nil  others  from  it. 

Moralists  have  given  many  different  accounts  of 
this  matter:  which  diversity  alone,  perhaps,  is  a  proof 
that  none  of  them  are  satisfactory. 

One  tells  us  that  mankind,  when  they  suffered  a 
particular  person  to  occupy  a  piece  of  ground,  by 
tacit  consent  relinquished  their  right  to  it;  and  as 
the  piece  of  ground,  they  say,  belonged  to  mankind 
collectively,  and  mankind  thus  gave  up  their  right  to 
the  first  peaceable  occupier,  it  thenceforward  became 
his  property,  and  no  oae  afterwards  had  a  right  to 
molest  him  in  it. 

The  objection  to  this  account  is,  that  consent  can 
never  be  presumed  from  silence,  where  the  person 
whose  consent  is  required  knows  nothing  about  the 
matter;  which  must  have  been  the  case  with  all  man- 
kind, except  the  neighbourhood  of  the  place  where 
the  appropriation  was  made.  And  to  suppose  that 
the  piece  of  ground  previouly  belonged  to  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  that  they  had  a  just  power  of  confer- 
ring a  right  to  it  upon  whom  they  pleased,  is  to  sup- 
pose the  question  resolved,  and  a  partition  of  land  to 
have  already  taken  place. 

Another  says,  that  each  man's  limbs  and  labour  are 
his  own  exclusively;  that,  by  occupying  a  piece  of 
ground,  a  man  inseparably  mixes  his  labour  with  it; 
by  which  means  the  piece  of  ground  becomes  thence- 
forward his  own,  as  you  cannot  take  it  from  him  with- 

VOL.  i.  8 


86  RIGHT    OF    PROPERTY. 

out   depriving   him    at  the  same  time  of  something 
which  is  indisputably  his. 

This  is  Mr.  Locke's  solution;  and  seems  indeed  a 
fair  reason,  where  the  value  of  the  labour  bears  a 
considerable  proportion  to  the  value  of  the  thing;  or 
where  the  thing  derives  its  chief  use  and  value  from 
the  labour  Thus  game  and  fish,  though  they  be 
common  whilst  at  large  in  the  woods  or  water,  instantly 
become  the  property  of  the  person  that  catches  them; 
because  an  animal  when  caught  is  much  more  valua- 
ble than  when  at  liberty:  and  this  increase  of  value, 
which  is  inseparable  from  and  makes  a  great  part  of 
the  whole  value,  is  strictly  the  property  of  the  fowler 
or  fisherman,  being  the  produce  of  his  personal  labour 
For  the  same  reason,  wood  or  iron,  manufactured  into 
utensils,  becomes  the  property  of  the  manufacturer 
because  the  value  of  the  workmanship  far  exceeds  that 
of  the  materials.  And  upon  a  similar  principle,  a 
parcel  of  unappropriated  ground,  which  a  man  should 
pare,  burn,  plough,  harrow,  and  sow,  for  the  produc- 
tion of  corn,  would  justly  enough  be  thereby  made  his 
own.  But  this  will  hardly  hold,  in  the  manner  it  has 
been  applied,  of  taking  a  ceremonious  possession  of  a 
tract  of  land,  as  navigators  do  of  new  discovered 
islands,  by  erecting  a  standard,  engraving  an  inscrip- 
tion, or  publishing  a  proclamation  to  the  birds  and 
beasts;  or  of  turning  your  cattle  into  a  piece  of 
ground,  setting  up  a  landmark,  digging  a  ditch,  or 
planting  a  hedge  round  it.  Nor  will  even  the  clear- 
ing, manuring,  and  ploughing  of  a  field  give  the  first 
occupier  a  right  to  it  in  perpetuity,  and  after  this  cul- 
tivation and  all  effects  of  it  are  ceased. 

Another  and,  in  my  opinion,  a  better  account  of 
the  first  right  of  ownership  is  the  following:  That, 
as  God  has  provided  these  things  for  the  use  of  all, 
he  has  of  consequence  given  each  leave  to  take  of  them 
what  he  wants:  by  virtue,  therefore,  of  this  leave,  a 
man  may  appropriate  what  he  stands  in  need  of  to  his 
own  use,  without  asking  or  waiting  for  the  consent  of 
others;  in  like  manner  as,  when  an  entertainment  is 
provided  for  the  freeholders  of  a  county,  each  free- 
holder goes,  and  eats  and  drinks  what  he  wants  01 


RIGHT    OF    PROPERTY.  87 

chooses,  without  having  or  waiting  for  the  consent  of 
the  other  guests. 

But  then  this  reason  justifies  property,  as  far  as 
necessaries  alone,  or,  at  the  most,  as  far  as  a  compe- 
tent provision  for  our  natural  exigences.  For,  in  the 
entertainment  we  speak  of  (allowing  the  comparison 
to  hold  in  all  points,)  although  every  particular  free- 
holder may  sit  down  and  eat  till  he  be  satisfied,  with- 
out any  other  leave  than  that  of  the  master  o£  the 
feast,  or  any  other  proof  of  that  leave  than  the  gene- 
ral invitation,  or  the  manifest  design  with  which  the 
entertainment  is  provided ;  yet  you  would  hardly  per- 
mit any  one  to  fill  his  pockets  or  his  wallet,  or  to  carry 
away  with  him  a  quantity  of  provision  to  be  hoarded 
up,  or  wasted,  or  given  to  his  dogs,  or  stewed  down 
into  sauces,  or  converted  into  articles  of  superfluous 
luxury;  especially  if,  by  so  doing,  Jie  pinched  the 
guests  at  the  lower  end  of  the  table. 

These  are  the  accounts  that  have  been  given  of  the 
matter  by  the  best  writers  upon  the  subject;  but,  were 
these  accounts  perfectly  unexceptionable,  they  would 
none  of  them,  I  fear,  avail  us  in  vindicating  our  pre- 
sent claims  of  property  in  land,  unless  it  were  more 
probable  than  it  is,  that  our  estates  were  actually 
acquired,  at  first,  in  some  of  the  ways  which  these 
accounts  suppose;  and  that  a  regular  regard  had  been 
paid  to  justice,  in  every  successive  transmission  of 
them  since;  for,  if  one  link  in  the  chain  fail,  every 
title  posterior  to  it  falls  to  the  ground. 

The  real  foundation  of  our  right  is  THE  LAW  OF 

THE    LAND. 

It  is  the  intention  of  God  that  the  produce  of  the 
earth  be  applied  to  the  use  of  man:  this  intention 
cannot  be  fulfilled  without  establishing  property:  it. 
is  consistent  therefore  with  his  will  that  property  be 
established.  The  land  cannot  be  divided  into  sepa- 
rate property,  without  leaving  it  to  the  law  of  the 
country  to  regulate  that  division:  it  is  consistent 
therefore  with  the  same  will,  that  the  law  should 
regulate  the  division;  and,  consequently,  "  consistent 
with  the  will  of  God,"  or  "riffht,"  that  I  should  po? 
eess  that  share  which  these  regulations  assign  me. 


88  RIGHT    OF    PROPERTY. 

By  whatever  circuitous  train  of  reasoning  you  at- 
tempt to  derive  this  right,  it  must  terminate  at  last  in 
the  will  of  God;  the  straightest,  therefore,  and  short- 
est way  of  arriving  at  this  will  is  the  best. 

Hence  it  appears,  that  my  right  to  an  estate  does 
not  at  all  depend  upon  the  manner  or  justice  of  the 
original  acquisition;  nor  upon  the  justice  of  each  sub- 
sequent change  of  possession.  Jt  is  not,  for  instance, 
the  less,  nor  ought  it  to  be  impeached,  because  the 
estate  was  taken  possession  of  at  first  by  a  family  of 
aboriginal  Britons,  who  happened  to  be  stronger  than 
their  neighbours,  nor  because  the  British  possessor 
was  turned  out  by  a  Roman,  or  the  Roman  by  a 
Saxon  invader;  nor  because  it  was  seized,  without 
colour  of  right  or  reason,  by  a  follower  of  the  Norman 
adventurer;  from  whom,  after  many  interruptions  of 
fraud  and  violence,  it  has  at  length  devolved  to  me. 

Nor  does  the  owner's  right  depend  upon  the  expe- 
diency of  the  law  which  gives  it  to  him.  On  one  side 
of  a  brook  an  estate  descends  to  the  eldest  son;  on  tho 
other  side,  to  all  the  children  alike.  The  right  of  the 
claimants  under  both  laws  of  inheritance  is  equal; 
though  the  expediency  of  such  opposite  rules  must 
necessarily  be  different. 

The  principles  we  have  laid  down  upon  this  sub- 
ject apparently  tend  to  a  conclusion  of  which  a  bad 
use  is  apt  to  be  made.  As  the  right  of  property  de- 
penda  upon  the  law  of  the  land,  it  seems  to  follow 
that  a  man  has  a  right  to  keep  and  take  every  thing 
which  the  law  will  allow  him  to  keep  and  take;  which 
in  many  cases  will  authori/e  the  most  flagitious  chi- 
canery. If  a  creditor  upon  a  simple  contract  neglect 
-to  demand  his  debt  for  six  years,  the  debtor  may  re 
fuse  to  pay  it:  would  it  be  right  therefore  to  do  so 
where  he  is  conscious  of  the  justice  of  the  debt  ?  If  a 
person  who  is  under  twenty-one  years  of  age  contract 
a  bargain  (other  than  for  necessaries,)  he  may  void  it 
by  pleading  his  minority:  but  would  «this  be  a  fair 
plea,  where  the  bargain  was  originally  just  ? — The 
distinction  to  be  taken  in  such  cases  is  this:  With 
the  law,  we  acknowledge,  resides  the  disposal  of  pro- 
perty; so  long,  therefore,  as  we  keep  within  the  de- 


RIGHT    OF    PROPERTY.  89 

sign  and  intention  of  a  law,  that  law  will  justify  us, 
as  well  in  for o  conscientia,  as  in  for o  humane,  what- 
ever be  the  equity  or  expediency  of  the  law  itself. 
But  when  we  convert  to  one  purpose  a  rule  or  ex- 
pression of  law  which  is  intended  for  another  purpose, 
then  we  plead  in  our  justification,  not  the  intention  of 
the  law,  but  the  words:  that  is,  we  plead  a  dead  letter, 
which  can  signify  nothing;  for  words  without  mean- 
ing or  intention  have  no  force  or  effect  in  justice; 
much  less  words  taken  contrary  to  the  meaning  and 
intention  of  the  speaker  or  writer.  To  apply  this  dis- 
tinction to  the  examples  just  now  proposed: — In  order 
to  protect  men  against  antiquated  demands,  from 
which  it  is  not  probable  they  should  have  preserved 
the  evidence  of  their  discharge,  the  law  prescribes  a 
limited  time  to  certain  species  of  private  securities, 
beyond  which  it  will  not  enforce  them,  or  lend  its 
assistance  to  the  recovery  of  the  debt.  If  a  man  be 
ignorant  or  dubious  of  the  justice  of  the  demand  made 
upon  him,  he  may  conscientiously  plead  this  limita- 
tion; because  he  applies  the  rule  of  law  to  the  pur- 
pose for  which  it  was  intended.  But  when  he  refuses 
to  pay  a  debt,  of  the  reality  of  which  he  is  conscious, 
he  cannot,  as  before,  plead  the  intention  of  the  sta- 
tute, and  the  supreme  authority  of  law;  unless  he 
could  show,  that  the  law  intended  to  interpose  its  su- 
preme authority,  to  acquit  men  of  debts,  of  the  exist- 
ence and  justice  of  which  they  were  themselves  sensi- 
ble. Again,  to  preserve  youth  from  the  practices  and 
impositions  to  which  their  inexperience  exposes  them, 
the  law  compels  the  payment  of  no  debts  incurred 
within  a  certain  age,  nor  the  performance  of  any  en- 
gagements, except  for  such  necessaries  as  are  suited 
to  their  condition  and  fortunes  If  a  young  person 
therefore  perceive  that  he  has  been  practised  or  im- 
posed upon,  he  may  honestly  avail  himself  of  the  pri- 
vilege of  his  nonage,  to  defeat  the  circumvention. 
But  if  he  shelter  himself  under  this  privilege,  to  avoid 
a  fair  obligation,  or  an  equitable  contract,  he  extends 
the  privilege  to  a  case  in  which  it  is  not  allowed  by 
intention  of  law,  and  in  which  consequently  it  does 
not,  in  natural  justice,  exist. 

VOL.  i.  8  * 


90  PROMISES. 

As  property  is  the  principal  subject  of  justice,  or  of 
"  the  determinate  relative  duties,"  we  have  put  down 
what  \ve  had  to  say  upon  it  in  the  first  place:  we  now 
proceed  to  state  these  duties  in  the  best  order  we  can. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PROMISES. 

1.  From  rvhence  the  obligation  to  perform  promises 

arises. 

2.  In  what  sense  promises  are  to  be  interpreted. 

3.  In  what  cases  promises  are  not  binding. 

1.  From  whence  the  obligation  to  perform  promises 
arises. 

They  who  argue  from  innate  moral  principles  sup- 
pose a  sense  of  the  obligation  of  promises  to  be  one  of 
them;  but,  without  assuming  this,  or  any  thing  else, 
without  proof,  the  obligation  to  perform  promises  ma}' 
be  deduced  from  the  necessity  of  such  a  conduct  to 
the  well-being,  or  the  existence,  indeed,  of  human 
society. 

Men  act  from  expectation.  Expectation  is  in  most 
cases  determined  by  the  assurances  and  engagements 
which  we  receive  from  others.  If  no  dependance 
could  be  placed  upon  these  assurances,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  know  what  judgment  to  form  of  many 
future  events,  or  how  to  regulate  our  conduct  with 
respect  to  them.  Confidence,  therefore,  in  promises 
is  essential  to  the  intercourse  of  human  life;  because, 
without  it,  the  greatest  part  of  our  conduct  would 
proceed  upon  chance.  But  there  could  be  no  confi- 
dence in  promises  if  men  were  not  obliged  to  perform 
them:  the  obligation  therefore  to  perform  promises  is 
essentia1  to  the  same  ends,  and  in  the  same  degree. 

Some  may  imagine,  that  if  this  obligation  were 
suspended,  a  general  caution  and  mutual  distrust 
would  ensue,  which  might  do  as  well:  but  this  is 
imagined,  without  considering  how,  every  hour  of 
our  lives,  we  trust  to  and  depend  upon  others ;  and 


PROMISES.  91 

how  impossible  it  is  to  stir  a  step,  or,  what  is  worse, 
to  sit  still  a  moment,  without  such  trust  and  depend- 
ance.  I  am  now  writing  at  my  ease,  not  doubting 
(or  rather  never  distrusting,  and  therefore  never  think- 
ing about  it,)  that  the  butcher  will  send  in  the  joint 
of  meat  which  I  ordered;  that  his  servant  will  bring 
it ;  that  my  cook  will  dress  it ;  that  my  footman  will 
serve  it  up;  and  that  I  shall  find  it  upon  table  at  one 
o'clock.  Yet  have  I  nothing  for  all  this  but  the  pro- 
mise of  the  butcher,  and  the  implied  promise  of  his 
servant  and  mine.  And  the  same  holds  of  the  most 
important  as  well  as  the  most  familiar  occurrences  of 
social  life.  In  the  one  the  intervention  of  promises  is 
formal,  and  is  seen  and  acknowledged:  our  instance, 
therefore,  is  intended  to  show  it  in  the  other,  where 
it  is  not  so  distinctly  observed. 

2.  In  what  sense  promises  are  to  be  interpreted. 

Where  the  terms  of  promise  admit  of  more  senses 
than  one,  the  promise  is  to  be  performed  "  in  that 
sense  in  which  the  promiser  apprehended,  at  the  time, 
that  the  promisee  received  it.*' 

It  is  not  the  sense  in  which  the  promiser  actually 
intended  it  that  always  governs  the  interpretation  of 
an  equivocal  promise;  because,  at  that  rate,  you 
might  excite  expectations  which  you  never  meant,  nor 
would  be  obliged  to  satisfy.  Much  less  is  it  the  sense 
in  which  the  promisee  actually  received  the  promise; 
for,  according  to  that  rule,  you  might  be  drawn  into 
engagements  which  you  never  designed  to  undertake. 
It  must  therefore  be  the  sense  (for  there  is  no  other 
remaining)  in  which  the  promiser  believed  that  the 
promisee  accepted  his  promise. 

This  will  not  differ  from  the  actual  intention  of  the 
promiser,  where  the  promise  is  given  without  collusion 
or  reserve:  but  we  put  the  rule  in  the  above  form,  to 
exclude  evasion  in  cases  in  which  the  popular  mean- 
ing of  a  phrase,  and  the  strict  grammatical  significa- 
tion of  the  words  differ;  or,  in  general,  wherever  the 
promiser  attempts  to  make  his  escape  through  some 
ambiguity  in  the  expressions  which  he  used.  " 

Temures  promised  the  garrison  of  Sebastia,  that  if 
they  would  surrender,  no  blood  should  be  shed.  The 


92  PROMISES. 

garrison  surrendered;  and  Temures  buried  them  all 
alive.  Now  Temures  fulfilled  the  promise  in  one 
sense,  and  in  the  sense  too  in  which  he  intended  it  at 
the  time;  but  not  in  the  sense  in  which  the  garrison  of 
Sebastia  actually  received  it,  nor  in  the  sense  in 
which  Temures  himself  knew  that  the  garrison  re- 
ceived it:  which  last  sense,  according  to  our  rule, 
was  the  sense  in  which  he  was  in  conscience  bound 
to  have  performed  it. 

From  the  account  we  have  given  of  the  obligation 
of  promises,  it  is  evident  that  this  obligation  depends 
upon  the  expectations  which  we  knowingly  and  vol- 
untarily excite.  Consequently,  any  action  or  conduct, 
towards  another,  which  we  are  sensible  excites  expec- 
tations in  that  other,  is  as  much  a  promise,  and  creates 
as  strict  an  obligation  as  the  most  express  assurances). 
Taking,  for  instance,  a  kinsman's  child,  and  educating 
him  for  a  liberal  profession,  or  in  a  manner  suitable 
only  for  the  heir  of  a  large  fortune,  as  much  obliges 
us  to  place  him  in  that  profession,  or  to  leave  him 
such  a  fortune,  as  if  we  had  given  him  a  promise  tn 
do  so  under  our  hands  and  seals.  In  like  manner,  a 
great  man,  who  encourages  an  indigent  retainer;  or 
a  minister  of  state,  who  distinguishes  and  caresses  aC 
his  levee  one  who  is  in  a  situation  to  be  obliged  by  his 
patronage;  engages,  by  such  behaviour,  to  provide 
for  him. — This  is  the  foundation  of  tacit  promises. 

You  may  either  simply  declare  your  present  inten 
tion,  or  you  may  accompany  your  declaration  with  an 
engagement  to  abide  by  it,  which  constitutes  a  com- 
plete promise.  In  the  first  case,  the  duty  is  satisfied 
if  you  were  sincere  at  the  time;  that  is,  if  you  enter- 
tained at  the  time,  the  intention  you  expressed,  how- 
ever soon,  or  for  whatever  reason,  you  afterwards 
change  it.  In  the  latter  case,  you  have  parted  with 
the  liberty  of  changing.  All  this  is  plain:  but  it 
must  be  observed,  that  most  of  those  forms  of  speech, 
which,  strictly  taken,  amount  to  no  more  than  de- 
clarations of  present  intention,  do  yet,  in  the  usual 
way  of  understanding  them,  excite  the  expectation, 
and  therefore  carry  with  them  the  force  of  absolute 
promises.  Such  as,  "I  intend  you  this  place" — "  I 


PROMISES. 


design  to  leave  you  this  estate" — "I  purpcee  giving 
you  my  vote" — "  I  mean  to  serve  you."  In  which, 
although  the  "intention,"  the  "  design,"  the  "  pur- 
pose," the  "  meaning,"  be  expressed  in  words  of  the 
present  time,  yet  you  cannot  afterwards  recede  from 
them  without  a  breach  of  good  faith.  If  you  choose 
therefore  to  make  known  your  present  intention,  and 
yet  to  reserve  to  yourself  the  liberty  of  changing  it, 
you  must  guard  your  expressions  by  an  additional 
clause,  as  "  I  intend  at  present," — "  If  I  do  not  al- 
ter,"— or  the  like.  And  after  all,  as  there  can  be  no 
reason  for  communicating  your  intention,  but  to 
excite  some  degree  of  expectation  or  other,  a  wanton 
change  of  an  intention  which  is  once  disclosed,  always 
disappoints  somebody;  and  is  always  for  that  reason 
wrong. 

There  is,  in  some  men,  an  infirmity  with  regard  to 
promises,  which  often  betrays  them  into  great  distress. 
From  the  confusion,  or  hesitation,  or  obscurity,  with 
which  they  express  themselves,  especially  when  over- 
awed or  taken  by  surprise,  they  sometimes  encourage 
expectations,  and  bring  upon  themselves  demands, 
which,  possibly,  they  never  dreamed  of.  This  is  a 
want,  not  so  much  of  integrity  as  of  presence  of  mind. 

3.  In  what  cases  promises  are  not  binding. 

1.  Promises  are  not  binding  where  the  performance 
is  impossible. 

But  observe,  that  the  promisor  is  guilty  of  a  fraud, 
if  he  be  secretly  aware  of  the  impossibility  at  the 
time  of  making  the  promise.  For,  when  any  one 
promises  a  thing,  he  asserts  his  belief,  at  least,  of  the 
possibility  of  performing  it ;  as  no  one  can  accept  or 
understand  a  promise  under  any  other  supposition. 
Instances  of  this  sort  are  the  following:  The  minister 
promises  a  place,  which  he  knows  to  be  engaged,  or 
not  at  his  disposal: — A  father,  in  settling  marriage 
articles,  promises  to  leave  his  daughter  an  estate, 
which  he  knows  to  be  entailed  upon  the  heir  male  of 
his  family: — A  merchant  promises  a  ship,  or  share  of 
a  ship,  which  he  is  privately  advised  is  lost  at  sea: 
— An  incumbent  promises  to  resign  a  living,  being 
previously  assured  that  his  resignatior  will  not  be 


94  PROMISES. 

accepted  by  the  bishop.  The  promiser,  as  in  thesa 
cases,  with  knowledge  of  the  impossibility,  is  justly 
answerable  in  an  equivalent ;  but  otherwise  not. 

When  the  promiser  himself  occasions  the  impossi- 
bility, it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  direct  breach 
of  the  promise ;  as  when  a  soldier  maims  or  a  servant 
disables  himself,  to  get  rid  of  his  engagements. 

2.  Promises  are  not  binding  when  the  performance 
is  unlawful. 

There  are  two  cases  of  this:  one,  where  the  unlaw- 
fulness is  known  to  the  parties  at  the  time  of  making 
the  promise;  as,  where  an  assassin  promises  his 
employer  to  despatch  his  rival  or  his  enemy;  a  ser- 
vant to  betray  his  master;  a  pimp  to  procure  a  mis- 
tress; or  a  friend  to  give  his  assistance  in  a  scheme 
of  seduction.  The  parties  in  these  cases  are  not 
obliged  to  perform  what  the  promise  requires,  because 
they  were  under  a  prior  obligation  to  the  contrary, 
From  which  prior  obligation  what  is  there  to  dis- 
charge them  ?  Their  promise — their  own  act  and 
deed.  But  an  obligation,  from  which  a  man  can  dis- 
charge himself  by  his  own  act,  is  no  obligation  at  all 
The  guilt  therefore  of  such  promises  lies  in  the 
making,  not  in  the  breaking  of  them;  and  if,  in  the 
interval  betwixt  the  promise  and  the  performance,  a 
man  so  far  recover  his  reflection  as  to  repent  of  his 
engagements,  he  ought  certainly  to  break  through 
them. 

The  other  case  is,  where  the  unlawfulness  did  not 
exist,  or  was  not  known,  at  the  time  of  making  the 
promise;  as  where  a  merchant  promises  his  corres- 
pondent abroad,  to  send  him  a  ship  load  of  corn  at  a 
time  appointed,  and  before  the  time  arrive  an  embargo 
is  laid  upon  the  exportation  of  corn: — A  woman  gives 
a  promise  of  marriage;  before  the  marriage,  she  dis- 
covers that  her  intended  husband  is  too  nearly  related 
to  her,  or  that,  he  has  a  wife  yet  living.  In  all  such 
cases,  where  the  contrary  does  not  appear,  it  must  be 
presumed  that  the  parties  supposed  what  they  pro- 
mised to  be  lawful,  and  that  the  promise  proceeded 
entirely  upon  this  supposition.  The  lawfulness  there- 
fore becomes  a  condition  of  the  promise;  which  con- 


PROMISES.  95 

<lition  failing,  the  obligation  ceases.  Of  the  same 
nature  was  Herod  s  promise  to  his  daughter-in-law, 
"  that  he  would  give  her  whatever  she  asked,  even  to 
the  half  of  his  kingdom."  The  promise  was  not 
unlawful  in  the  terms  in  which  Herod  delivered  it, 
and  when  it  became  so  by  the  daughter's  choice,  by 
her  demanding  "  John  the  Baptist's  head,''  Herod 
was  discharged  from  the  obligation  of  it,  for  the  rea- 
son now  laid  down,  as  well  as  for  that  given  in  the 
last  paragraph. 

This  rule,  "  that  promises  are  void,  where  the  per- 
formance is  unlawful,"  extends  also  to  imperfect  obli- 
gations; for  the  reason  of  the  rule  holds  of  all  obliga- 
tions. Thus,  if  you  promise  a  man  a  place  or  your 
vote,  and  he  afterwards  render  himself  unfit  to  receive 
either,  you  are  absolved  from  the  obligation  of  your 
promise;  or,  if  a  better  candidate  appear,  and  if  it  be 
a  case  in  which  you  are  bound  by  oath,  or  otherwise, 
to  govern  yourself  by  the  qualification,  the  promise 
must  be  broken  through. 

And  here  I  would  recommend,  to  young  persons 
especially,  a  caution,  from  the  neglect  of  which  many 
involve  themselves  in  embarrassment  and  disgrace; 
and  that  is,  "  never  to  give  a  promise,  which  may 
interfere  in  the  event  with  their  duty;"  for,  if  it  do 
so  interfere,  their  duty  must  be  discharged,  though 
at  the  expense  of  their  promise,  and  not  unusually  of 
tbek  good  name. 

The  specific  performance  of  promises  is  reckoned  a 
perfect  obligation.  And  many  casuists  have  laid 
down,  in  opposition  to  what  has  been  here  asserted, 
that,  where  a  perfect  and  an  imperfect  obligation 
clash,  the  perfect  obligation  is  to  be  preferred.  For 
which  opinion,  however,  there  seems  to  be  no  reason, 
but  what  arises  from  the  terms  "  perfect"  and  *'  im- 
perfect," the  impropriety  of  which  has  been  remarked 
above.  The  truth  is,  of  two  contradictory  obligations 
that  ought  to  prevail  which  is  prior  in  point  of  time. 

It  is  the  performance  being  unlawful,  and  not  any 
unlawfulness  in  the  subject  or  motive  of  the  promise, 
which  destroys  its  validity:  therefore  a  bribe,  after 
the  vote  is  given;  the  wages  of  prostitution;  the 


96  PROMISES 

reward  of  any  crime,  after  the  crime  is  committed; 
ought,  if  promised,  to  be  paid.  For  the  sin  and  mis- 
chief, by  this  supposition,  are  over;  and  will  be  nei- 
ther more  nor  less  for  the  performance  of  the  promise 

In  like  manner,  a  promise  does  not  lose  its  obliga- 
tion merely  because  it  proceeded  from  an  unlawful 
motive.  A  certain  person,  in  the  lifetime  of  his  wife, 
who  was  then  sick,  had  paid  his  addresses  and  pro- 
mised marriage  to  another  woman; — the  wife  died; 
and  the  woman  demanded  performance  of  the  pro- 
mise. The  man,  who,  it  seems,  had  changed  his 
mind,  either  felt  or  pretended  doubts  concerning  the 
obligation  of  such  a  promise,  and  referred  his  case  to 
Bishop  Sanderson,  the  most  eminent,  in  this  kind  of 
knowledge,  of  his  time.  Bishop  Sanderson,  after 
writing  a  dissertation  upon  the  question,  adjudged  the 
promise  to  be  void:  in  which,  however,  upon  our 
principles,  he  was  wrong;  for,  however  criminal  the 
affection  might  be  which  induced  the  promise,  the 
performance,  when  it  was  demanded,  was  lawful; 
which  is  the  only  lawfulness  required. 

A  promise  cannot  be  deemed  unlawful,  where  it 
produces,  when  performed,  no  effect  beyond  what 
would  have  taken  place  had  the  promise  never  been 
made.  And  this  is  the  single  case,  in  which  the  obli- 
gation of  a  promise  will  justify  a  conduct  which, 
unless  it  had  been  promised,  would  be  unjust.  A 
captive  may  lawfully  recover  his  liberty,  by  a  pr^nise 
of  neutrality;  for  his  conqueror  takes  nothing  by  the 
promise,  which  he  might  not  have  secured  by  his 
death  or  confinement;  and  neutrality  would  be  inno- 
cent in  him,  although  criminal  in  another.  It  is 
manifest,  however,  that  promises,  which  come  into 
the  place  of  coercion,  can  extend  no  further  than  to 
passive  compliances;  for  coercion  itself  could  compel 
no  more.  Upon  the  same  principle,  promises  of 
secrecy  ought  not  to  be  violated,  although  the  public 
would  derive  advantage  from  the  discovery.  Such 
promises  contain  no  unlawfulness  in  them  to  destroy 
their  obligation;  for  as  the  information  would  not 
have  been  imparted  upon  any  other  condition,  the 


PROMISES.  97 

public  lose  nothing  by  the  promise,  which  they  would 
have  gained  without  it. 

3.  Promises  are  not  binding,  where  they  contradict 
a  former  promise  ; 

Because  the  performance  is  then  unlawful;  which 
resolves  this  case  into  the  last. 

4.  Promises  are  not   binding   before  acceptance; 
that   is,    before    notice   given   to  the   promisee;  for, 
where  the   promise  is  beneficial,  if  notice  be  given, 
acceptance  may  be  presumed.     Until  the  promise  be 
communicated  to  the  promisee,  it  is  the  same  only  as 
a  resolution  in  the  mind  of  the  promiser,  which  may 
be  altered  at  pleasure.     For  no  expectation  has  been 
excited,  therefore  none  can  be  disappointed. 

But  suppose  I  declare  my  intention  to  a  third  per 
son,  who,  without  any  authority  from  me,  conveys  my 
declaration  to  the  promisee;  is  that  such  a  notice  as 
will  be  binding  upon  me?  It  certainly  is  not:  for  I 
nave  not  done  that  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  a 
promise — I  have  not  voluntarily  excited  expectation. 

5.  Promises  are  not  binding  which  are  released  by 
the  promisee. 

This  is  evident;  but  it  may  be  sometimes  doubted 
who  the  promisee  is.  If  I  give  a  promise  to  A,  of  a 
place  to  vote  for  B;  as  to  a  father  for  his  son;  to  an 
uncle  for  his  nephew;  to  a  friend  of  mine  for  a  rela- 
tion or  friend  of  his;  then  A  is  the  promisee,  whose 
consent  I  must  obtain,  to  be  released  from  the  en- 
gagement. 

If  I  promise  a  place  or  vote  to  B  by  A,  that  is,  if  A 
be  a  messenger  to  convey  the  promise,  as  if  I  should 
eay,  "  You  may  tell  B  that  he  shall  have  this  place, 
or  may  depend  upon  my  vote;"  or  if  A  be  employed 
to  introduce  B's  request,  and  I  answer  in  any  terms 
which  amount  to  a  compliance  with  it;  then  B  is  the 
promisee 

Promises  to  one  person,  for  the  benefit  of  another, 
are  not  released  by  the  death  of  the  promisee;  for 
his  death  neither  makes  the  performance  impractica- 
ble, nor  implies  any  consent  to  release  the  promiser 
from  it. 

VOL.  i.  9 


98  PROMISES. 

6.  Erroneous  promises  are  not  binding  in  certain 
cases;  as, 

1.  Where   the  error  proceeds  from  the  mistake  or 
misrepresentation  of  the  promisee. 

Because  a  promise  evidently  supposes  the  truth  of 
the  account,  which  the  promisee  relates  in  order  to 
obtain  it.  A  beggar  solicits  your  charity  by  a  story 
of  the  most  pitiable  distress;  you  promise  to  relieve 
him,  if  he  will  call  again: — In  the  interval  you  dis- 
cover his  story  to  be  made  up  of  lies;— this  discovery, 
no  doubt,  releases  you  from  your  promise.  One  who 
wants  your  service  describes  the  business  or  office  for 
which  he  would  engage  you; — you  promise  to  under- 
take it:  when  you  come  to  enter  upon  it,  you  find 
the  profits  less,  the  labour  more,  or  some  material 
circumstance  different  from  the  account  he  gave  you: 
— In  such  case,  you  are  not  bound  by  your  promise. 

2.  When  the   promise    is  understood   by    the   pro- 
misee to  proceed  upon  a  certain  supposition,  or  when 
the  promisor  apprehended  it  to  be  so  understood,  and 
that  supposition  turns  out  to  be  false;  then  the  pro- 
mise is  not  binding. 

This  intricate  rule  will  be  best  explained  by  an 
example.  A  father  receives  an  account  from  abroad, 
of  the  death  of  his  only  son; — soon  after  which,  he 
promises  his  fortune  to  his  nephew.  The  account 
turns  out  to  be  false.  The  father,  we  say,  is  released 
from  his  promise;  not  merely  because  he  never  would 
have  made  it,  had  he  known  the  truth  of  the  case — 
for  that  alone  will  not  do; — but  because  the  nephew 
also  himself  understood  the  promise  to  proceed  upon 
this  supposition  of  his  cousin's  death;  or,  at  least  his 
uncle  thought  he  so  understood  it,  and  could  not  think 
otherwise.  The  promise  proceeded  upon  this  suppo- 
sition in  the  promiser's  own  apprehension,  and,  as  he 
believed,  in  the  apprehension  of  both  parties;  and 
this  belief  of  his  is  the  precise  circumstance  which 
sets  him  free.  The  foundation  of  the  rule  is  plainly 
this:  a  man  is  bound  only  to  satisfy  the  expectation 
which  he  intended  to  excite;  whatever  condition 
therefore  he  intended  to  subject  that  expectation  to, 
becomes  an  essential  condition  of  the  promise. 


PROMISES.  99 

Errors,  which  come  not  within  this  description,  do 
not  annul  the  obligation  of  a  promise.  I  promise  a 
candidate  my  vote; — presently  another  candidate  ap- 
pears, for  whom  I  certainly  would  have  reserved  it, 
had  I  been  acquainted  with  his  design.  Here  there- 
fore j  as  before,  my  promise  proceeded  from  an  error; 
and  I  never  should  have  given  such  a  promise,  had  I 
been  aware  of  the  truth  of  the  case,  as  it  has  turned 
out. — But  the  promisee  did  not  know  this; — he  did 
not  receive  the  promise  subject  to  any  such  condition, 
or  as  proceeding  from  any  such  supposition;  nor  did 
I  at  the  time  imagine  he  so  received  it.  This  error, 
therefore,  of  mine,  must  fall  upon  my  own  head,  and 
the  promise  be  observed  notwithstanding.  A  father 
promises  a  certain  fortune  with  his  daughter,  sup- 
posing himself  to  be  worth  so  much — his  circum- 
stances turn  out,  upon  examination,  worse  than  he 
was  aware  of.  Here  again  the  promise  was  errone- 
ous, but,  for  the  reason  assigned  in  the  last  case,  will 
nevertheless  oe  obligatory. 

The  case  of  erroneous  promises  is  attended  with 
some  difficulty:  for,  to  allow  every  mistake,  or  change 
of  circumstances,  to  dissolve  the  obligation  of  a  pro- 
mise \  would  be  to  allow  a  latitude,  which  might 
evacuate  the  force  of  almost  all  promises:  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  gird  the  obligation  so  tight,  as  to  make 
no  allowances  for  manifest  and  fundamental  errors, 
would,  in  many  instances,  be  productive  of  great 
hardship  and  absurdity. 


It  has  long  been  controverted  amongst  moralists, 
whether  promises  be  binding  which  are  extorted  by 
violence  or  fear.  The  obligation  of  all  promises 
results,  we  have  seen,  from  the  necessity  or  the  use  of 
that  confidence  which  mankind  repose  in  them.  The 
question,  therefore,  whether  these  promises  are  bind- 
ing, will  depend  upon  this;  whether  mankind,  upon 
the  whole,  are  benefited  by  the  confidence  placed  on 
such  promises  ? — A  highwayman  attacks  you — and 
being  disappointed  of  his  booty,  threatens  or  prepares 
to  murder  you; — you  promise,  with  many  solemn 


100  PROMISES. 

asseverations,  that  if  he  will  spare  your  life,  he  shall 
find  a  purse  of  money  left  for  him  at  a  place  appoint- 
ed:— upon  the  faith  of  this  promise,  he  forbears 
from  further  violence.  Now,  your  life  was  saved  by 
the  confidence  reposed  in  a  promise  extorted  by  fear; 
and  the  lives  of  many  others  may  be  saved  by  the 
same.  This  is  a  good  consequence.  On  the  other 
hand,  confidence  in  promises  like  these,  greatly  facili- 
tates the  perpetration  of  robberies:  they  may  be  made 
the  instruments  of  almost  unlimited  extortion.  This 
is  a  bad  consequence:  and  hi  the  question  between 
the  importance  of  these  opposite  consequences,  re- 
sides the  doubt  concerning  the  obligation  of  such 
promises. 

There  are  other  cases  which  are  plainer;  as  where 
a  magistrate  confines  a  disturber  of  the  public  peace 
in  gaol,  till  he  promise  to  behave  better;  or  a  prisoner 
of  war  promises,  if  set  at  liberty,  to  return  within  a 
certain  time.  These  promises,  say  moralists,  are 
oinding,  because  the  violence  or  duress  is  just;  but  the 
truth  is,  because  there  is  the  same  use  of  confidence 
in  these  promises,  as  of  confidence  in  the  promises  of 
a  person  at  perfect  liberty. 


VOIDS  are  promises  to  God.  The  obligation  cannot 
be  made  out  upon  the  same  principle  as  that  of  other 
promises.  The  violation  of  them,  nevertheless,  im- 
plies a  want  of  reverence  to  the  supreme  Being; 
which  is  enough  to  make  it  sinful. 

There  appears  no  command  or  encouragement  in 
the  Christian  Scriptures  to  make  vows;  much  less 
any  authority  to  break  through  them  when  they  are 
made.  The  few  instances*  of  vows  which  we  read 
of  in  the  New  Testament  were  religiously  observed. 

The  rules  we  have  laid  down  concerning  promises, 
are  applicable  to  vows.  Thus  Jephtha's  vow,  taken 
in  the  sense  in  which  that  transaction  is  commonly 
understood,  was  not  binding;  because  the  performance, 
in  that  contingency,  became  unlawful, 

*  Acts,  xviii.  18 ;  xxu  23. 


CONTRACTS. 


101 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CONTRACTS. 

A  CONTRACT  is  a  mutual  promise.  The  obligation 
therefore  of  contracts,  the  sense  in  which  they  are  to 
be  interpreted,  and  the  cases  where  they  are  not  bind- 
ing, will  be  the  same  as  of  promises. 

From  the  principle  established  in  the  last  chapter, 
"  that  the  obligation  of  promises  is  to  be  measured  by 
the  expectation  which  the  promiser  any  how  volunta- 
rily and  knowingly  excites,"  results  a  rule  which 
governs  the  construction  of  all  contracts,  and  is  capa- 
ble, from  its  simplicity,  of  being  applied  with  great 
ease  and  certainty,  viz.  That 

Whatever  is  expected  by  one  side,  and  known  to 
be  so  expected  by  the  other,  is  to  be  deemed  a  part  01 
condition  of  the  contract. 

The  several   kinds  of  contracts,  and  the   order  in 
which  we  propose  to  consider  them,  may  be  exhibited 
at  one  view,  thus: 
(  Sale. 
Hazard. 


Contracts  of  < 


Lending  of 


Labour  , 


(Service. 
Commissions. 
Partnership. 
Offices. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CONTRACTS  OB    SALE. 

THE  rule  of  justice  which  wants  with  most  anxiety 
to  be  inculcated  in  the  making  of  bargains,  is,  that 
the  seller  is  bound  in  conscience  to  disclose  the  faults 
of  what  he  offers  to  sale.  Amongst  other  methods  of 
proving  this,  one  may  be  the  following: — 

VOL.  i.  9  * 


102  CONTRACTS. 

I  suppose  it  will  be  allowed,  that  to  advance  a 
direct  falsehood  in  recommendation  of  our  wares,  by 
ascribing  to  them  some  quality  which  we  know  that 
they  have  not,  is  dishonest.  Now  compare  with  this 
the  designed  concealment  of  some  fault,  which  we 
know  that  they  have.  The  motives  and  the  effects  of 
actions  are  the  only  points  of  comparison,  in  which 
their  moral  quality  can  differ;  but  the  motive  in  these 
two  cases  is  the  same,  viz,  to  procure  a  higher  price 
than  we  expect  otherwise  to  obtain:  the  effect,  that 
is,  the  prejudice  to  the  buyer,  is  also  the  same;  for  he 
finds  himself  equally  out  of  pocket  by  his  bargain, 
whether  the  commodity,  when  he  gets  home  with  it, 
turn  out  worse  than  he  had  supposed,  by  the  want  of 
some  quality  which  he  expected,  or  the  discovery 
of  some  fault  which  he  did  not  expect.  If  there- 
fore actions  be  the  same  as  to  all  moral  purposes, 
which  proceed  from  the  same  motives  and  produce  the 
same  effects;  it  is  making  a  distinction  without  a  dif- 
ference, to  esteem  it  a  cheat  to  magnify  beyond  the 
truth  the  virtues  of  what  we  have  to  sell,  but  none  to 
conceal  its  faults. 

It  adds  to  the  value  of  this  kind  of  honesty,  that  the 
faults  of  many  things  are  of  a  nature  not  to  be  known 
by  any,  but  by  the  persons  who  have  used  them;  so 
that  the  buyer  has  no  security  from  imposition,  but  in 
the  ingenuousness  and  integrity  of  the  seller. 

There  is  one  exception,  however,  to  this  rule; 
namely,  where  the  silence  of  the  seller  implies  some 
fault  in  the  thing  to  be  sold,  and  where  the  buyer 
has  a  compensation  in  the  price  for  the  risk  which  he 
runs;  as  where  a  horse,  in  a  London  repository,  is 
sold  by  public  auction,  without  warranty;  the  want 
of  warranty  is  notice  of  some  unsoundness,  and  pro- 
duces a  proportionable  abatement  in  the  price. 

To  this  of  concealing  the  faults  of  what  we  want  to 
put  off",  may  be  referred  the  practice  of  passing  bad 
money.  This  practice  we  sometimes  hear  defended 
by  a  vulgar  excuse,  that  we  have  taken  the  morey 
for  good,  and  must  therefore  get  rid  of  it.  Which 
excuse  is  much  the  same  as  if  one  who  had  been  rob- 
bed upon  the  highway  should  allege,  that  he  had  a 


CONTRACTS.  103 

right  to  reimburse  himself  out  of  the  pocket  of  the  first 
traveller  he  met:  the  justice  of  which  reasoning  the 
traveller  possibly  may  not  comprehend. 

Where  there  exists  no  monopoly  or  combination 
the  market  price  is  always  a  fair  price;  because  it 
will  always  be  proportionable  to  the  use  and  scarcity 
of  the  article.  Hence,  there  need  be  no  scruple  about 
demanding  or  taking  the  market  price;  and  all  those 
expressions,  "provisions  are  extravagantly  dear," 
"  corn  bears  an  unreasonable  price,"  and  the  like,  im- 
port no  unfairness  or  unreasonableness  in  the  seller. 

If  your  tailor  or  your  draper  charge,  or  even  ask  of 
you,  more  for  a  suit  of  clothes  than  the  market  price, 
you  complain  that  you  are  imposed  upon;  you  pro- 
nounce the  tradesman  who  makes  such  a  charge,  dis- 
honest; although,  as  the  man's  goods  were  his  own, 
and  he  had  a  right  to  prescribe  the  terms  upon  which 
he  would  consent  to  part  with  them,  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned what  dishonesty  the*e  can  be  in  the  case,  or 
wherein  the  imposition  consists.  Whoever  opens  a 
shop,  or  in  any  manner  exposes  goods  to  public  sale, 
virtually  engages  to  deal  with  his  customers  at  amar^ 
ket  price;  because  it  is  upon  the  faith  and  opinion  of 
such  an  engagement,  that  any  one  comes  within  his 
shop  doors,  or  offers  to  treat  with  him.  This  is  expect- 
ed by  the  buyer;  is  known  to  be  so  expected  by  the 
seller;  which  is  enough,  according  to  the  rule  deli- 
vered above,  to  make  it  a  part  of  the  contract  between 
them,  though  not  a  syllable  be  said  about  it.  The 
breach  of  this  implied  contract  constitutes  the  fraud 
inquired  after. 

Hence,  if  you  disclaim  any  such  engagement,  you 
may  set  what  value  you  please  upon  your  property. 
If,  upon  being  asked  to  sell  a  house,  you  answer  that 
the  house  suits  your  fancy  or  convemency,  and  that 
you  will  not  turn  yourself  out  of  it  under  such  a  price; 
the  price  fixed  may  be  double  of  what  the  house  cost, 
or  would  fetch  at  a  public  sale,  without  any  imputa- 
tion of  injustice  or  extortion  upon  you. 

If  the  thing  sold  be  damaged,  or  perish  between 
the  sale  and  the  delivery,  ought  the  buyer  to  bear  tha 
loss  or  the  seller  ?  This  will  depend  upon  the  particu- 


104  CONTRACTS 

lar  construction  of  the  contract.  If  the  seller,  either 
expressly  or  by  implication  or  by  custom,  engage  to 
deliver  the  goods;  as  if  I  buy  a  set  of  china,  and  the 
chinaman  ask  me  to  what  place  he  shall  bring  or 
send  them,  and  they  be  broken  in  the  conveyance, 
the  seller  must  abide  by  the  loss.  If  the  thing  sold 
remain  with  the  seller,  at  the  instance  or  for  the  con- 
veniency  of  the  buyer,  then  the  buyer  undertakes  the 
risk;  as  if  I  buy  a  horse,  and  mention,  that  I  will 
send  for  it  on  such  a  day  (which  is  in  effect  desiring 
that  it  may  continue  with  the  seller  till  I  do  send  for 
it,)  then,  whatever  misfortune  befalls  the  horse  in  the 
mean  time,  must  be  at  my  cost. 

And  here,  once  for  all,  I  would  observe,  that  innu- 
merable questions  of  this  sort  are  determined  solely 
by  custom;  not  that  custom  possesses  any  proper 
authority  to  alter  or  ascertain  the  nature  of  right  and 
wrong;  but  because  the  contracting  parties  are  pre- 
sumed to  include  in  their  stipulation  all  the  conditiona 
which  custom  has  annexed  to  contracts  of  the  same 
sort:  and  when  the  usage  is  notorious,  and  no  ex- 
ception made  to  it,  this  presumption  is  generally 
agreeable  to  the  fact.* 

If  I  order  a  pipe  of  port  from  a  wine  merchant, 
abroad;  at  what  period  the  property  passes  from  the 
merchant  to  me;  whether  upon  delivery  of  the  wine  at 
the  merchant's  warehouse;  upon  its  being  put  on 
shipboard  at  Oporto;  upon  the  arrival  of  the  ship  in 
England,  at  its  destined  port;  or  not  till  the  wine  be 
committed  to  my  servants  or  deposited  in  my  cellar; 
are  all  questions  which  admit  of  no  decision,  but  what 
custom  points  out.  Whence,  in  justice,  as  well  as 
law,  what  is  called  the  custom  of  merchants  regulates 
the  construction  of  mercantile  concerns. 

*  It  happens  here,  as  in  many  cases,  that  what  the  parties 
ought  to  do,  and  what  a  judge  or  arbitrator  would  award  to 
be  done,  may  be  very  different.  What  the  parties  ought  to 
do,  by  virtue  of  their  contract,  depends  upon  their  conscious- 
ness at  the  time  of  making  it  :  whereas  a  third  person  finds 
it  necessary  to  found  his  judgment  upon  presumptions,  which 
presumptions  may  be  false,  although  the  most  probable  that 
be  could  proceed  b^. 


CONTRACTS.  106 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CONTRACTS    OF    HAZARD. 

BY  Contracts  of  Hazard,  I  mean  gaming  and  insu- 
rance. 

What  say  some  of  this  kind  of  contracts,  "  that 
one  side  ought  not  to  have  any  advantage  over  tha 
other,"  is  neither  practicable  nor  true.  It  is  not  prac- 
ticable; for  that  perfect  equality  of  skill  and  judg- 
ment which  this  rule  requires  is  seldom  to  be  met 
with.  I  might  not  have  it  in  my  power  to  play  with 
fairness  a  game  at  cards,  billiards,  or  tennis;  lay  a 
wager  at  a  horse  race;  or  underwrite  a  policy  of  in- 
surance, once  in  a  twelvemonth,  if  I  must  wait  till  I 
meet  with  a  person  whose  art,  skill,  and  judgment  in 
these  matters  is  neither  greater  nor  less  than  my  own. 
Nor  is  this  equality  requisite  to  the  justice  of  the 
contract.  One  party  may  give  to  the  other  the  whole 
of  the  stake,  if  he  please,  and  the  other  party  may 
justly  accept  it,  if  it  be  given  him;  much  more  there- 
fore may  one  give  to  the  other  a  part  of  the  stake;  or, 
what  is  exactly  the  same  thing,  an  advantage  in  the 
chance  of  winning  the  whole. 

The  proper  restriction  is,  that  neither  side  have  an 
advantage  by  means  of  which  the  other  is  not  aware; 
for  this  is  an  advantage  taken  without  being  given. 
Although  the  event  be  still  an  uncertainty,  your  ad- 
vantage in  the  chance  has  a  certain  value;  and  so 
much  of  the  stake  as  th.it  value  amounts  to  is  taken 
from  your  adversary  without  his  knowledge,  and 
therefore  without  his  consent.  If  I  sit  down  to  a 
game  at  whist,  and  have  an  advantage  over  the  ad- 
versary, by  means  of  a  better  memory,  closer  atten- 
tion, or  a  superior  knowledge  of  the  rules  and  chances 
of  the  game,  the  advantage  is  fair*  because  it  is  ob- 
tained by  means  of  which  the  adversary  is  aware; 
for  he  is  aware  when  he  sits  down  with  me  that  I 
shall  exert  the  skill  that  I  possess  to  the  utmost.  But 
if  I  gain  an  advantage  by  packing  the  cards,  glancing 
my  eye  into  the  adversary's  hands,  or  by  concerted 


106  CONTRACTS    OF    LENDING    OF 

signals  with  my  partner,  it  is  a  dishonest  advantage* 
because  it  depends  upon  means  which  the  adversary 
never  suspects  that  I  make  use  of. 

The  same  distinction  holds  of  all  contracts  into 
which  chance  enters.  If  I  lay  a  wager  at  a  horse 
race,  founded  upon  the  conjecture  I  form  from  the 
appearance  and  character  and  breed  of  the  horses,  I 
am  justly  entitled  to  any  advantage  which  my  judg- 
ment gives  me:  but,  if  I  carry  on  a  clandestine  cor- 
respondence with  the  jockeys,  and  find  out  from  them, 
that  a  trial  has  been  actually  made,  or  that  it  is  set- 
tled beforehand  which  horse  shall  win  the  race,  all 
such  information  is  so  much  fraud,  because  derived 
from  sources  which  the  other  did  not  suspect,  when 
he  proposed  or  accepted  the  wager. 

In  speculations  in  trade  or  in  the  stocks,  if  I  exer- 
cise my  judgment  upon  the  general  aspect  and  pros- 
pect of  public  affairs,  and  deal  with  a  person  who 
conducts  himself  by  the  same  sort  of  judgment,  the 
contract  has  all  the  equality  in  it  which  is  necessary, 
but  if  I  have  access  to  secrets  of  state  at  home,  01 
private  advice  of  some  decisive  measure  or  event 
abroad,  I  cannot  avail  myself  of  these  advantages 
with  justice,  because  they  are  excluded  by  the  con- 
tract, which  proceeded  upon  the  supposition  that  I 
had  no  such  advantage. 

In  insurances,  in  which  the  underwriter  computes 
his  risk  entirely  from  the  account  given  by  the  person 
insured,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  justice  and 
validity  of  the  contract,  that  this  account  be  exact 
and  complete. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CONTRACTS  OF  LENDING    OF  INCONSUMABLE 
PROPERTY. 

WHEN  the  identical  loan  is  to  be  returned,  as  a  book, 
a  horse,  a  harpsichord,  it  is  called  inconsumable  ;  in 


INCONSUMABLE    PROPERTY.  107 

opposition  to  corn,  wine,  money,  and  those  things 
which  perish,  or  are  parted  with,  in  the  use,  and  can 
therefore  only  be  restored  in  kind. 

The  questions  under  this  head  are  few  and  simple. 
The  first  is,  if  the  thing  lent  be  lost  or  damaged,  who 
ought  to  bear  the  loss  or  damage  ?  If  it  be  damaged 
by  the  use,  or  by  accident  in  the  use,  for  which  it  was 
lent,  the  lender  ought  to  bear  it;  as  if  I  hire  a  job- 
coach,  the  wear,  tear,  and  soiling  of  the  coach  must 
belong  to  the  lender;  or  a  horse  to  go  a  particular 
journey,  and  in  going  the  proposed  journey  the  horse 
die  or  be  lamed,  the  loss  must  be  the  lender's:  on 
the  contrary,  if  the  damage  be  occasioned  by  the 
fault  of  the  borrower,  or  by  accident  in  some  use  for 
which  it  was  not  lent,  then  the  borrower  must  make 
it  good;  as  if  the  coach  be  overturned  or  broken  to 
pieces  by  the  carelessness  of  your  coachman;  or  the 
horse  be  hired  to  take  a  morning's  ride  upon,  and  you 
go  a  hunting  with  him,  or  leap  him  over  hedges,  or 
put  him  into  your  cart  or  carriage,  and  he  be  strained, 
or  staked,  or  galled,  or  accidentally  hurt,  or  drop 
down  dead  whilst  you  are  thus  using  him,  you  must 
make  satisfaction  to  the  owner. 

The  two  cases  are  distinguished  by  this  circum- 
stance: that  in  one  case  the  owner  foresees  the  damage 
or  risk,  and  therefore  consents  to  undertake  it;  in  the 
other  case  he  does  not. 

It  is  possible  that  an  estate  or  a  house  may,  during 
the  term  of  a  lease,  be  so  increased  or  diminished  in 
its  value,  as  to  become  worth  much  more  or  much 
less  than  the  rent  agreed  to  be  paid  for  it.  In  some 
of  which  cases  it  may  be  doubted  to  whom,  of  natural 
right,  the  advantage  or  disadvantage  belongs.  The 
rule  of  justice  seems  to  be  this:  If  the  alteration 
might  be  expected  by  the  parties,  the  hirer  must  take 
the  consequence;  if  it  could  not,  the  owner.  An  or- 
chard, or  a  vineyard,  or  a  mine,  or  a  fishery,  or  a  de- 
coy may  this  year  yield  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing, 
yet  the  tenant  shall  pay  his  rent;  and  if  the  next  year 
produce  tenfold  the  usual  profit,  no  more  shall  be  de- 
manded; because  the  produce  is  in  its  nature  preca- 
rious, and  this  variation  might  be  expected.  If  an 


108  CONTRACTS    CONCERNING    THE 

estate  in  the  fens  of  Lincolnshire,  or  the  Isle  of  Ely, 
be  overflowed  with  water  so  as  to  be  incapable  of 
occupation,  the  tenant,  notwithstanding,  is  bound  by 
his  lease;  because  he  entered  into  it  with  a  knowledge 
and  foresight  of  the  danger.  On  the  other  hand,  if, 
by  the  irruption  of  the  sea  into  a  country  where  it 
was  never  known  to  have  come  before,  by  the  change 
of  the  course  of  a  river,  the  fall  of  a  rock,  the  break- 
ing out  of  a  volcano,  the  bursting  of  a  moss,  the  in- 
cursions of  an  enemy,  or  by  a  mortal  contagion 
amongst  the  cattle;  if,  by  means  like  these,  an  estate 
change  or  lose  its  value,  the  loss  shall  fall  upon  the 
owner;  that  is,  the  tenant  shall  either  be  discharged 
from  his  agreement,  or  be  entitled  to  an  abatement 
of  rent.  A  house  in  London,  by  the  building  of  a 
bridge,  the  opening  of  a  new  road  or  street,  may  be- 
come of  ten  times  its  former  value;  and,  by  contrary 
causes,  may  be  as  much  reduced  in  value:  here  also, 
as  before,  the  owner,  not  the  hirer,  shall  be  affected 
by  the  alteration.  The  reason  upon  which  our  deter- 
mination proceeds  is  this;  that  changes  such  as  these, 
being  neither  foreseen  nor  provided  for  by  the  con- 
tracting parties,  form  no  part  or  condition  of  the  con- 
tract; and  therefore  ought  to  have  the  same  effect  as 
if  no  contract  at  all  had  been  made  (for  none  was 
made  with  respect  to  them,)  that  is,  ought  to  fall 
upon  the  owner. 


CHAPTER  X. 

CONTRACTS  CONCERNING  THE  LENDING  OP 
MONEY. 

THERE  exists  no  reason  in  the  law  of  nature  why  a 
man  should  not  be  paid  for  the  lending  of  his  money, 
as  w*»ll  as  of  any  other  property  info  which  the  money 
might  be  converted. 

The  scruples  that  have  been  entertained  upon  this 


LENDING    OF    MONEY  109 

head,  and  upon  the  foundation  of  which  the  receiving 
of  interest  or  usury  (for  they  formerly  meant  the  same 
thing,)  was  once  prohibited  in  almost  all  Christian 
countries,*  arose  from  a  passage  in  the  law  of  MOSES, 
Deuteronomy  xxiii.  19,  20.  "Thou  shalt  not  lend 
upon  usury  to  thy  brother;  usury  of  money,  usury 
of  victuals,  usury  of  any  thing  that  is  lent  upon 
usury:  unto  a  stranger  thou  mayest  lend  upon  usury; 
but  unto  thy  brother  thou  shalt  not  lend  upon  usury." 

This  prohibition  is  now  generally  understood  to 
have  been  intended  for  the  Jews  alone,  as  part  of  the 
civil  or  political  law  of  that  nation,  and  calculated  to 
preserve  amongst  themselves  that  distribution  of  pro- 
perty, to  which  many  of  their  institutions  were  sub- 
servient: as  the  marriage  of  an  heiress  within  her 
own  tribe;  of  a  widow  who  was  left  childless  to  her 
husband's  brother;  the  year  of  jubilee,  when  alien- 
ated estates  reverted  to  the  family  of  the  original 
proprietor: — regulations  which  were  never  thought  to 
be  binding  upon  any  but  the  commonwealth  of  Israel. 

This  interpretation  is  confirmed,  I  think,  beyond 
all  controversy,  by  the  distinction  made  in  the  law 
between  a  Jew  and  a  foreigner; — "unto  a  stranger 
thou  mayest  lend  upon  usury,  but  unto  thy  brother 
thou  mayest  not  lend  upon  usury;"  a  distinction 
which  could  hardly  have  been  admitted  into  a  law, 
which  the  Divine  Author  intended  to  be  of  moral  and 
of  universal  obligation. 

The  rate  of  interest  has  in  most  countries  been 
regulated  by  law.  The  Roman  law  allowed  of  twelve 
pounds  per  cent,  which  Justinian  reduced  at  one 
stroke  to  four  pounds.  A  statute  of  the  thirteenth 
year  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  which  was  the  first  that 
tolerated  the  receiving  of  interest  in  England  at  all, 
restrained  it  to  ten  pounds  per  cent. ;  a  statute  of  James 


*  By  a  statute  of  James  the  First,  interest  above  eight 
pounds  per  cent,  was  prohibited  (and  consequently  under 
that  rate  allowed,)  with  this  sage  provision,  That  this 
statute  shall  not  be  construed  or  expounded  to  allow  tht 
practice  of  usury  in  point  of  religion  or  conscience. 

VOL.  i.  10 


110  CONTRACTS    CONCERNING    THE 

the  First  to  eight  pounds;  of  Charles  the  Second  to 
Bix  pounds:  of  Queen  Anne  to  five  pounds,  on  pain 
of  forfeiture  of  treble  the  value  of  the  money  lent:  at 
which  rate  and  penalty  the  matter  now  stands.  The 
policy  of  these  regulations  is,  to  check  the  power  of 
accumulating  wealth  without  industry;  to  give  en- 
couragement to  trade,  by  enabling  adventurers  in  it 
to  borrow  money  at  a  moderate  price;  and,  of  late 
years,  to  enable  the  state  to  borrow  the  subject's  mo- 
ney itself. 

Compound  interest,  though  forbidden  by  the  law 
of  England,  is  agreeable  enough  to  natural  equity 
for  interest  detained  after  it  is  due  becomes,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  part  of  the  sum  lent. 

It  is  a  question  which  sometimes  occurs,  how  mo 
ney  borrowed  in  one  country  ought  to  be  paid  in 
another,  where  the  relative  value  of  the  precious 
metals  is  not  the  same.  For  example,  suppose  I  bor- 
row a  hundred  guineas  in  London,  where  each  guinea 
is  worth  one-and-twenty  shillings,  and  meet  my  cre- 
ditor in  the  East  Indies,  w-here  a  guinea  is  worth  no 
more  perhaps  than  nineteen;  is  it  a  satisfaction  of 
the  debt  to  return  a  hundred  guineas,  or  must  I  make 
up  so  many  times  one  and  twenty  shillings  ?  I  should 
think  the  latter;  for  it  must  be  presumed  that  my 
creditor,  had  he  not  lent  me  his  guineas,  would  have 
disposed  of  them  in  such  a  manner  as  to  have  now 
had,  in  the  place  of  them,  so  many  one  and  twenty 
shillings;  and  the  question  supposes  that  he  neither 
intended,  nor  ought  to  be  a  sufferer,  by  parting  with 
the  possession  of  his  money  to  me. 

When  the  relative  value  of  coin  is  altered  by  an 
act  of  the  state,  if  the  alteration  would  have  extended 
to  the  identical  pieces  which  were  lent,  it  is  enough 
to  return  an  equal  number  of  pieces  of  the  same  deno- 
mination, or  their  present  value  in  any  other.  As,  if 
guineas  were  reduced  by  act  of  parliament  to  twenty 
shillings,  so  many  twenty  shilings  as  I  borrowed 
guineas  would  be  a  just  repayment.  It  would  be 
otherwise  if  the  reduction  was  o'ving  to  a  debasement 
of  the  coin;  for  then  respect  ought  to  be  had  to  the 
comparative  name  of  the  old  guinea  and  the  new. 


LENDING    OF    MONEY.  Ill 

Whoever  borrows  money  is  bound  in  conscience 
to  repay  it.  This  every  man  can  see;  but  every  man 
connot  see,  or  does  not  however  reflect,  that  he  is,  in 
consequence,  also  bound  to  use  the  means  necessary 
to  enable  himself  to  repay  it.  "  If  he  pay  the  money 
when  he  has  it,  or  has  it  to  spare,  he  does  all  that 
an  honest  man  can  do,"  and  all,  he  imagines,  that  is 
required  of  him;  whilst  the  previous  measures,  which 
are  necessary  to  furnish  him  with  that  money,  he 
makes  no  part  of  his  care,  nor  observes  to  be  as  much 
his  duty  as  the  other;  such  as  selling  a  family  seat 
or  a  family  estate,  contracting  his  plan  of  expense, 
laying  down  his  equipage,  reducing  the  number  of 
his  servants,  or  any  of  those  humiliating  sacrifices, 
which  justice  requires  of  a  man  in  debt,  the  moment 
he  perceives  that  he  has  no  reasonable  prospect  of 
paying  his  debts  without  them.  An  expectation  which 
depends  upon  the  continuance  of  his  own  life,  will 
not  satisfy  an  honest  man,  if  a  better  provision  be  in 
his  power;  for  it  is  a  breach  of  faith  to  subject  a  cre- 
ditor, when  we  can  help  it,  to  the  risk  of  our  life,  be 
the  event  what  it  will;  that  not  being  the  security  to 
which  credit  was  given. 

I  know  few  subjects  which  have  been  more  misun- 
derstood than  the  law  which  authorizes  the  imprison- 
ment of  insolvent  debtors.  It  has  been  represented 
as  a  gratuitous  cruelty  which  contributed  nothing  to 
the  reparation  of  the  creditor's  loss,  or  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  community.  This  prejudice  arises  prin- 
cipally from  considering  the  sending  of  a  debtor  to 
gaol,  as  an  act  of  private  satisfaction  to  the  creditor, 
instead  of  a  public  punishment.  As  an  act  of  satisfac- 
tion or  revenge,  it  is  always  wrong  in  the  motive,  and 
often  intemperate  and  undistinguishing  in  the  exer- 
cise. Consider  it  as  a  public  punishment,  founded 
upon  the  same  reason,  and  subject  to  the  same  rules 
as  other  punishments;  and  the  justice  of  it,  together 
with  the  degree  to  which  it  should  be  extended,  and 
the  objects  upon  whom  it  may  be  inflicted,  will  be 
apparent.  There  are  frauds  relating  to  insolvency, 
against  which  it  is  as  necessary  to  provide  punish- 
ment as  for  any  public  crimes  whatever:  as  where  a 


112  CONTRACTS    CONCERNING    THE 

man  gets  your  money  into  his  possession,  and  fortli- 
with  runs  away  with  it;  or,  what  is  little  better, 
squanders  it  in  vicious  expenses;  or  stakes  it  at  the 
gaming-table;  in  the  Alley;  or  upon  wild  adven- 
tures in  trade;  or  is  conscious,  at  the  time  he  borrows 
it,  that  he  can  never  repay  it;  or  wilfully  puts  it  out 
of  his  power  by  profuse  living:  or  conceals  his  effects, 
or  transfers  them  by  collusion  to  another:  not  to  men- 
tion the  obstinacy  of  some  debtors,  who  had  rather 
rot  in  a  gaol  than  deliver  up  their  estates;  for,  to  say 
the  truth,  the  first  absurdity  is  in  the  law  itself,  which 
leaves  it  in  a  debtor's  power  to  withold  any  part  of 
his  property  from  the  claim  of  his  creditors.  The 
only  question  is,  whether  the  punishment  be  properly 
placed  in  the  hands  of  an  exasperated  creditor;  for 
which  it  may  be  said,  that  these  frauds  are  so  subtle 
and  versatile,  that  nothing  but  a  discretionary  power 
can  overtake  them:  and  that  no  discretion  is  likely 
to  be  so  well  informed,  so  vigilant,  or  so  active  as  that 
of  the  creditor. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  confine- 
ment of  a  debtor  in  gaol  is  a  punishment ;  and  that 
every  punishment  supposes  a  crime.  To  pursue, 
therefore,  with  the  extremity  of  legal  rigour,  a  sufferer, 
whom  the  fraud  or  failure  of  others,  his  own  want  of 
capacity,  or  the  disappointments  and  miscarriages  io 
which  all  human  affairs  are  subject,  have  reduced  to 
ruin,  merely  because  we  are  provoked  by  our  loss, 
and  seek  to  relieve  the  pain  we  feel  by  that  which  we 
inflict,  is  repugnant  not  only  to  humanity  but  to  jus- 
tice: for  it  is  to  pervert  a  provision  of  law,  designed 
for  a  different  and  a  salutary  purpose,  to  the  gratifica- 
tion of  private  spleen  and  resentment.  Any  altera- 
tion in  these  laws  which  could  distinguish  the  de- 
grees of  guilt,  or  convert  the  service  of  the  insolvent 
debtor  to  some  public  profit,  might  be  an  improve- 
ment; but  any  considerable  mitigation  of  their  rigour, 
under  colour  of  relieving  the  poor,  would  increase 
their  hardships.  For  whatever  deprives  the  creditor 
of  his  power  of  coercion,  deprives  him  of  his  secu- 
rity; and  as  this  must  add  greatly  to  the  difficulty  of 
obtaining  credit,  the  poor,  especially  the  lower  sort 


LENDING    OF  MONEY.  113 

of  tradesmen,  are  the  first  who  would  suffer  by  such 
a  regulation.  As  tradesmen  must  buy  before  they 
sell,  you  would  exclude  from  trade  two-thirds  of  those 
who  now  carry  it  on,  if  none  were  enabled  to  enter 
into  it  without  a  capital  sufficient  for  prompt  pay- 
ments. An  advocate,  therefore,  for  the  interests  of 
this  important  class  of  the  community  will  deem  it 
more  eligible,  that  one  out  of  a  thousand  should  be 
sent  to  gaol  by  his  creditors,  than  that  the  nine  hun- 
dred and  ninety-nine  should  be  straightened  and  em- 
barrassed, and  many  of  them  lie  idle,  by  the  want  of 
credit. 


CHAPTER    XL 

CONTRACTS    OF    LABOUR. 


SERVICE  in  this  country  is,  as  it  ought  to  be,  volun- 
tary, and  by  contract;  and  the  master's  authority 
extends  no  further  than  the  terms  or  equitable  con- 
struction of  the  contract  will  justify. 

The  treatment  of  servants  as  to  diet,  discipline,  and 
accommodation,  the  kind  and  quantity  of  work  to  be 
required  of  them,  the  intermission,  liberty,  and  indul- 
gence to  be  allowed  them,  must  be  determined  in  a 
great  measure  by  custom;  for  where  the  contract  in- 
volves so  many  particulars,  the  contracting  parties 
express  a  few  perhaps  of  the  principal,  and,  by  mu- 
tual understanding,  refer  the  rest  to  the  known  cus- 
tom of  the  country  in  like  cases. 

A  servant  is  not  bound  to  obey  the  unlawful  com- 
mands of  his  master;  to  minister,  for  instance,  to  his 
unlawful  pleasures;  or  to  assist  him  by  unlawful  prac- 
tices in  his  profession;  as  in  smuggling  or  adulterat- 
ing the  articles  in  which  he  deals.  For  the  servant 
is  bound  by  nothing  but  his  own  promise;  and  the 

VOL.  i.  10* 


114  SERVICE. 

obligation   of  a   promise  extends  not   to  things  un- 
lawful. 

For  the  same  reason,  the  master's  authority  is  no 
justification  of  the  servant  in  doing  wrong;  for  the 
servant's  own  promise,  upon  which  that  authority  is 
founded,  would  be  none. 

Clerks  and  apprentices  ought  to  be  employed  en- 
tirely in  the  profession  or  trade  which  they  are  intended 
to  learn.  Instruction  is  their  hire;  and  to  deprive 
them  of  the  opportunities  of  instruction,  by  taking  up 
their  time  with  occupations  foreign  to  their  business, 
is  to  defraud  them  of  their  wages. 

The  master  is  responsible  for  what  a  servant  doe 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  his  employment;  for  it  i 
done  under  a  general  authority  committed  to  him, 
which  is  in  justice  equivalent  to  a  specific  direction. 
Thus,  if  I  pay  money  to  a  banker's  clerk,  the  banker 
is  accountable,  but  not  if  I  had  paid  it  to  his  butler 
or  his  footman,  whose  business  it  is  not  to  receive  mo- 
ney. Upon  the  same  principle,  if  I  once  send  a  ser- 
vant to  take  up  goods  upon  credit,  whatever  goods  he 
afterwards  takes  up  at  the  same  shop,  so  Jong  as  he 
continues  in  my  service,  are  justly  chargeable  to  my 
account. 

The  law  of  this  country  goes  great  lengths  in  in 
tending  a  kind  of  concurrence  in  the  master,  so  as  to 
charge  him  with  the  consequences  of  his  servant's 
conduct.  If  an  innkeeper's  servant  rob  his  guests, 
the  innkeeper  must  make  restitution;  if  a  farrier's 
servant  lame  a  horse,  the  farrier  must  answer  for  the 
damage;  and  still  further,  if  your  coachman  or  carter 
drive  over  a  passenger  in  the  road,  the  passenger  may 
recover  from  you  a  satisfaction  for  the  hurt  he  suffers. 
But  these  determinations  stand,  I  think,  rather  upon 
the  authority  of  the  law,  than  any  principle  of  natural 
justice. 

There  is  a  carelessness  and  facility  in  "  giving  cha- 
racters," as  it  is  called,  of  servants,  especially  when 
given  in  writing,  or  according  to  some  established 
form,  which,  to  speak  plainly  of  it,  is  a  cheat  upon 
those  who  accept  them.  They  are  given  with  so  little 
reserve  and  veracity,  "  that  I  should  as  soon  depend," 


SERVICE.  115 

nays  the  author  of  the  Rambler,  "  upon  an  acquittal 
at  the  Old  Bailey,  by  way  of  recommendation  of  a 
servant 's  honesty,  as  upon  one  of  these  characters. ' '  It 
is  sometimes  carelessness;  and  sometimes  also  to  get 
rid  of  a  bad  servant  without  the  uneasiness  of  a  dis- 
pute; for  which  nothing  can  be  pleaded  but  the  most 
ungenerous  of  all  excuses,  that  the  person  whom  we 
deceive  is  a  stranger. 

There  is  a  conduct  the  reverse  of  this,  but  more  in- 
jurious, because  the  injury  falls  where  there  is  no 
remedy;  I  mean  the  obstructing  of  a  servant's  ad- 
vancement because  you  are  unwilling  to  spare  his 
service.  To  stand  in  the  way  of  your  servant's  inter- 
est is  a  poor  return  for  his  fidelity;  and  affords  slen- 
der encouragement  for  good  behaviour  in  this  nume- 
rous and  therefore  important  part  of  the  community. 
It  is  a  piece  of  injustice  which,  if  practised  towards 
an  equal,  the  law  of  honour  would  lay  hold  of:  as  it 
is,  it  is  neither  uncommon  nor  disreputable. 

A  master  of  a  family  is  culpable  if  he  permit  any 
vices  among  his  domestics  which  he  might  restrain 
by  due  discipline,  and  a  proper  interference.  This 
results  from  the  general  obligation  to  prevent  misery 
when  in  our  power;  and  the  assurance  which  we  have 
that  vice  and  misery  at  the  long  run  go  together. 
Care  to  maintain  in  his  family  a  sense  of  virtue  and 
religion  received  the  divine  approbation  in  the  person 
of  ABRAHAM,  Gen.  xviii.  19. — "  I  know  him,  that 
he  will  command  his  children,  and  his  household  after 
him;  and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  the  LORD,  to 
do  justice  and  judgment."  And  indeed  no  authority 
seems  so  well  adapted  to  this  purpose,  as  that  of 
masters  of  families;  because  none  operates  upon  the 
subjects  of  it  with  an  influence  so  immediate  and 
constant. 

What  the  Christian  Scriptures  have  delivered  con- 
cerning the  relation  and  reciprocal  duties  of  masters 
and  servants,  breathes,  a  spirit  of  liberality  very  little 
known  in  ages  when  servitude  was  slavery;  and 
which  flowed  from  a  habit  of  contemplating  mankind 
under  the  common  relation  in  which  they  stand  to 
their  Creator,  and  with  respect  to  their  interest  in 


116  COMMISSIONS. 

another  existence:*  "  Servants,  be  obedient  to  them 
that  are  your  masters,  according  to  the  flesh,  with  fear 
and  trembling;  in  singleness  of  your  heart,  as  unto 
Christ;  not  with  eye-service,  as  men  pleasers,  but  as 
the  servants  of  Christ,  doing  the  will  of  God  from 
the  heart;  with  good  will,  doing  service  as  to  the 
Lord,  and  not  men ;  knowing  that  whatsoever  good 
thing  any  man  doeth,  the  same  shall  he  receive  of  the 
LORD,  whether  he  be  bond  or  free.  And  ye  masters, 
do  the  same  thing  unto  them,  forbearing  threatening; 
knowing  that  your  Master  also  is  in  heaven  ;  neither 
is  there  respect  of  persons  with  him."  The  idea  of 
referring  their  service  to  God,  of  considering  him  as 
having  appointed  them  their  task,  that  they  were 
doing  his  will,  and  were  to  look  to  him  for  their  re- 
ward was  new;  and  affords  a  greater  security  to  the 
master  than  any  inferior  principle,  because  it  tends  to 
produce  a  steady  and  cordial  obedience,  in  the  place 
of  that  constrained  service,  which  can  never  be 
trusted  out  of  sight,  and  which  is  justly  enough  called 
eye-service.  The  exhortation  to  masters,  to  keep  in 
view  their  own  subjection  and  accountableness,  was 
no  less  seasonable. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

CONTRACTS  OF  LABOUR. 
COMMISSIONS. 

WHOEVER  undertakes  another  man's  businessmakes 
it  his  own,  that  is,  promises  to  employ  upon  it  the 
same  care,  attention,  and  diligence  that  he  would  do 
if  it  were  actually  his  own  :  for  he  knows  that  the 
business  was  committed  to  him  with  that  expectation. 
And  he  promises  nothing  more  than  this.  Therefore 
an  agent  is  not  obliged  to  wait,  inquire,  solicit,  ride 
about  the  country,  toil,  or  study,  whilst  there  remains 
a  possibility  of  benefiting  his  employer.  If  he  exert 

*  Eph.  vi.  &— 9. 


COMMISSIONS.  117 

BO  much  of  his  activity,  and  use  such  caution,  as  the 
value  of  the  business,  in  his  judgment,  deserves;  that 
is,  as  he  would  have  thought  sufficient  if  the  same 
interest  of  his  own  had  been  at  stake,  he  has  dis- 
charged his  duty,  although  it  should  afterwards  turn 
out,  that  by  more  activity  and  longer  perseverance  he 
might  have  concluded  the  business  with  greater  ad- 
vantage. 

This  rule  defines  the  duty  of  factors,  stewards,  at- 
torneys, and  advocates. 

One  of  the  chief  difficulties  of  an  agent's  situation 
is,  to  know  how  far  he  may  depart  from  his  instruc- 
tions, when,  from  some  change  or  discovery  in  the 
circumstances  of  his  commission,  he  sees  reason  to 
believe  that  his  employer,  if  he  were  present,  would 
alter  his  intention.  The  latitude  allowed  to  agents 
in  this  respect  will  be  different,  according  as  the 
commission  was  confidential  or  ministerial;  and  ac- 
cording as  the  general  rule  and  nature  of  the  service 
require  a  prompt  and  precise  obedience  to  orders,  or 
not.  An  attorney,  sent  to  treat  for  an  estate,  if  hm 
found  out  a  flaw  in  the  title,  would  desist  from  pro  • 
posing  the  price  he  was  directed  to  propose;  and 
very  properly.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  commander 
in  chief  of  an  army  detach  an  officer  under  him  upon 
a  particular  service,  which  service  turns  out  more  dif 
ficult  or  less  expedient  than  was  supposed,  insomuch 
that  the  officer  is  convinced  that  his  commander,  if  he 
were  acquainted  \rith  the  true  state  in  which  the  affair 
is  found,  would  recall  his  orders;  yet  must  this  officer, 
if  he  cannot  wait  for  fresh  directions  without  preju- 
dice to  the  expedition  he  is  sent  upon,  pursue,  at  all 
hazards,  those  which  he  brought  out  with  him. 

What  is  trusted  to  an  agent  may  be  lost  or  damaged 
in  his  hands  by  misfortune.  An  agent  who  acts 
without  pay  is  clearly  not  answerable  for  the  loss; 
for,  if  he  give  his  labour  for  nothing,  it  cannot  be 
presumed  that  he  gave  also  security  for  the  success 
of  it.  If  the  agent  be  hired  to  the  business,  the  ques- 
tion will  depend  upon  the  apprehension  of  the  parties 
at  the  time  of  making  the  contract:  which  apprehen- 
sion of  theirs  must  be  collected  chiefly  from  custom, 


118  COMMISSIONS. 

by  which  probably  it  was  guided.  Whether  a  public 
carrier  ought  to  account  for  goods  sent  by  him;  the 
owner  or  master  of  a  ship  for  the  cargo;  the  post- 
office  for  letters,  or  bills  enclosed  in  letters,  where  the 
loss  is  not  imputed  to  any  %ult  or  neglect  of  theirs' 
are  questions  of  this  sort.  Any  expression  which  by 
implication  amounts  to  a  promise,  will  be  binding 
upon  the  agent,  without  custom;  as  where  the  pro- 
prietors of  a  stage  coach  advertise  that  they  will  not 
be  accountable  for  money,  plate,  or  jewels,  this  makes 
them  accountable  for  every  thing  else;  or  where  the 
price  is  too  much  for  the  labour,  part  of  it  may  be 
considered  as  a  premium  for  insurance.  On  the  other 
hand,  any  caution  on  the  part  of  the  owner  to  guard 
against  danger  is  evidence  that  he  considers  the  risk 
to  be  his;  as  cutting  a  ^ank  bill  in  two,  to  send  by 
the  post  at  different  times. 

Universally,  unless  a  promise,  either  express  or 
tacit,  can  be  proved  against  the  agent,  the  loss  must 
fall  upon  the  owner. 

The  agent  may  be  a  sufferer  in  his  own  person  or 
property  by  the  business  which  he  undertakes;  as 
where  one  goes  a  journey  for  another,  and  lames  his 
horse,  or  is  hurt  himself  by  a  fall  upon  the  road;  can 
the  agent  in  such  case  claim  a  compensation  for  the 
misfortune  ?  Unless  the  same  be  provided  for  by  ex- 
press stipulation,  the  agent  is  not  entitled  to  any  com- 
pensation from  his  employer  on  that  account;  for 
where  the  danger  is  not  foreseen,  there  can  be  no 
reason  to  believe  that  the  employer  engaged  to  indem- 
nify the  agent  against  it:  still  less  where  it  is  fore- 
seen; for  whoever  knowingly  undertakes  a  danger- 
ous employment,  in  common  construction,  takes  upon 
himself  the  danger  and  the  consequences;  as  where 
a  fireman  undertakes  for  a  reward  to  rescue  a  box  of 
writings  from  the  flames;  or  a  sailor  to  bring  off 
passenger  from  a  ship  in  a  storm. 


PARTNERSHIP.  119 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CONTRACTS  OF  LABOUR 
PARTNERSHIP. 

1  KNOW  nothing  upon  the  subject  of  partnership 
that  requires  explanation,  but  in  what  manner  the  pro- 
fits are  to  be  divided,  where  one  partner  contributes 
money  and  the  other  labour;  which  is  a  common  case. 

Rule.  From  the  stock  of  the  partnership  deduct 
the  sum  advanced,  and  divide  the  remainder  between 
the  monied  partner  and  the  labouring  partner,  in  the 
proportion  of  the  interest  of  the  money  to  the  wages 
of  the  labourer,  allowing  such  a  rate  of  interest  as 
money  might  be  borrowed  for  upon  the  same  security, 
and  such  wages  as  a  journeyman  would  require  for 
the  same  labour  and  trust. 

Example.  A  advances  a  thousand  pounds,  but 
knows  nothing  of  the  business;  B  produces  no  money, 
but  has  been  brought  up  to  the  business,  and  under- 
takes to  conduct  it.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  stock 
and  the  effects  of  the  partnership  amount  to  twelve 
hundred  pounds;  consequently  there  are  two  hun- 
dred pounds  to  be  divided.  Now,  nobody  would  lend 
money  upon  the  event  of  the  business  succeeding, 
which  is  A's  security,  under  six  per  cent; — therefore 
A  must  be  allowed  sixty  pounds  for  the  interest  of  his 
money.  B,  before  he  engaged  in  the  partnership, 
earned  thirty  pounds  a  year  in  the  same  employment ; 
his  labour,  therefore,  ought  to  be  valued  at  thirty 
pounds:  and  the  two  hundred  pounds  must  be  di- 
vided between  the  partners  in  the  proportion  of  sixty 
to  thirty;  that  is,  A  must  receive  one  hundred  and 
thirty-three  pounds  six  shillings  and  eight  pence,  and 
B  sixty-six  pounds  thirteen  shillings  and  fourpence. 

If  there  be  nothing  gained,  A  loses  his  interest  and 
B  his  labour;  which  is  right.  If  the  original  stock 
be  diminished,  by  this  rule  B  loses  only  his  labour,  as 
before;  whereas  A  loses  his  interest  and  part  of  the 
principal;  for  which  eventual  disadvantage  A  is  com 
pensated,  by  having  the  interest  of  his  money  com- 


120  OFFICES 

puted  at  six  per  cent,  in  the  division  of  the  profits, 
when  there  are  any. 

It  is  true,  that  the  division  of  the  profit  is  seldom 
forgotten  in  the  constitution  of  the  partnership,  and 
is  therefore  commonly  settled  by  express  agreements: 
but  these  agreements,  to  be  equitable,  should  pursue 
the  principle  of  the  rule  here  laid  down. 

All  the  partners  are  bound  to  what  any  one  of 
them  does  in  the  course  of  the  business;  for,  quoad 
hoc  each  partner  is  considered  as  an  authorized  agent 
for  the  rest 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

CONTRACTS  OF  LABOUR. 


IN  many  offices,  as  schools,  fellowships  of  colleges, 
professorships  of  universities,  and  the  like,  there  is  a 
twofold  contract;  one  with  the  founder,  the  other 
with  the  electors. 

The  contract  with  the  founder  obliges  the  incum- 
bent of  the  office  to  discharge  every  duty  appointed 
by  the  charter,  statutes,  deed  of  gift,  or  will  of  the 
founder;  because  the  endowment  was  given,  and  con- 
sequently accepted,  for  that  purpose,  and  upon  those 
conditions. 

The  contract  with  the  electors  extends  this  obliga- 
tion to  all  duties  that  have  been  customarily  connect- 
ed with  and  reckoned  a  part  of  the  office,  though  not 
prescribed  by  the  founder;  for  the  electors  expect 
from  the  person  they  choose  all  the  duties  which  his 
predecessors  have  discharged;  and  as  the  person 
elected  cannot  be  ignorant  of  their  expectation,  if  he 
meant  to  have  refused  this  condition,  he  ought  to  have 
apprised  them  of  his  objection. 

And  here  let  it  be  observed,  that  the  electors  can 
excuse  the  conscience  of  the  person  elected,  from  this 
last  class  of  duties  alone;  because  this  class  results 
from  a  contract  to  which  the  electors  and  the  person 


OFFICES.  121 

elected    are   the   only    parties.     The   other  class  of 
duties  results  from  a  different  contract. 

It  is  a  question  of  some  magnitude  and  difficulty, 
what  offices  may  be  conscientiously  supplied  by  a  de- 
puty. 

We  will  state  the  several  objections  to  the  substi 
tution  of  a  deputy;  and  then  it  will  be  understood, 
that  a  deputy  may  be  allowed  in  all  cases  to  which 
these  objections  do  not  apply. 

An  office  may  not  be  discharged  by  deputy, 

1.  Where  a  particular  confidence  is  reposed  in  the 
judgment  and  conduct  of  the  person  appointed  to  it; 
as  the  office   of  a   steward,   guardian,   judge,    com- 
mander in  chief  by  land  or  sea. 

2.  Where  the   custom  hinders;  as  in    the    case    of 
schoolmasters,  tutors,  and  of  commissions  in  the  army 
or  navy. 

3.  Where  the  duty  cannot,   from  its   nature,  be  so 
well  performed  by  a  deputy;  as  the  deputy  governor 
of  a  province  may  not  possess  the  legal  authority,  or 
the  actual  influence  of  his  principal. 

4.  When  some  inconveniency  would  result  to  the 
service  in  general  from  the  permission  of  deputies  in 
such  cases:  for  example,  it  is  probable  that  military 
merit  would  be  much  discouraged,  if  the  duties  be- 
longing to  commissions  in  the    army   were    generally 
allowed  to  be  executed  by  substitutes. 

The  nonresidence  of  the  parochial  clergy  who  sup- 
ply the  duty  of  their  benefices  by  curates,  is  worthy 
of  a  more  distinct  consideration.  And  in  order  to 
draw  the  question  upon  this  case  to  a  point  we  will 
suppose  the  officiating  curate  to  discharge  every  duty 
which  his  principal,  were  he  present,  would  be  bound 
to  discharge,  and  in  a  manner  equally  beneficial  to 
the  parish:  under  which  circumstances,  the  only  ob- 
jection to  the  absence  of  the  principal,  at  least  the 
only  one  of  the  foregoing  objections,  is  the  last. 

And,  in  my  judgment,  the  force  of  this  objection 
will  be  much  diminished,  if  the  absent  rector  or  vicar 
be,  in  the  mean  time,  engaged  in  any  function  or  em- 
ployment of  equal  or  of  greater  importance  to  the 
general  interest  of  religion.  For  the  whole  revenue 

VOL.  I  11 


122  OFFICES. 

of  the  national  church  may  properly  enough  be  con- 
sidered as  a  common  fund  for  the  support  of  the  na- 
tional religion;  and  if  a  clergyman  be  serving  the 
cause  of  Christianity  and  Protestantism,  it  can  make 
little  difference,  out  of  what  particular  portion  of  this 
fund,  that  is,  by  the  tithes  and  glebe  of  wlrat  particu- 
lar parish,  his  service  be  requited;  any  more  than  it 
can  prejudice  the  king's  service,  that  an  officer  who 
has  signalized  his  merit  in  America  should  be  re- 
warded with  the  government  of  a  fort  or  castle  in  Ire- 
land, which  he  never  saw;  but  for  the  custody  of 
which,  proper  provision  is  made  and  care  taken. 

Upon  the  principle  thus  explained,  this  indulgence 
is  due  to  none  more  than  to  those  who  are  occupied 
in  cultivating  and  communicating  religious  knowledge 
or  the  sciences  subsidiary  to  religion. 

This  way  of  considering  the  revenues  of  the  church 
as  a  common  fund  for  the  same  purpose  is  the  more 
equitable,  as  the  value  of  particular  preferments  bears 
no  proportion  to  the  particular  charge  or  labour. 

But  when  a  man  draws  upon  this  fund,  whose  stu- 
dies and  employments  bear  no  relation  to  the  object 
of  it,  and  who  is  no  further  a  minister  of  the  Christian 
religion  than  as  a  cockade  makes  a  soldier,  it  seems  a 
misapplication  little  better  than  a  robbery. 

And  to  those  who  have  the  management  of  such 
matters  I  submit  this  question,  whether  the  impover 
ishment  of  the  fund,  by  converting  the  best  share  of 
it  into  annuities  for  the  gay  and  illiterate  youth  of 
great  families,  threatens  not  to  starve  and  stifle  the 
little  clerical  merit  that  is  left  amongst  us  ? 

All  legal  dispensations  from  residence  proceed  upon 
the  supposition,  that  the  absentee  is  detained  from  his 
living  by  some  engagement  of  equal  or  of  greater 
public  importance.  Therefore,  if,  in  a  case  where 
no  such  reason  can  with  truth  be  pleaded,  it  be  said 
that  this  question  regards  a  right  of  property,  and 
that  all  right  of  property  awaits  the  disposition  of 
law;  that,  therefore,  if  the  law,  which  gives  a  man 
the  emoluments  of  a  living,  excuse  him  from  residing 
upon  it,  he  is  excused  in  conscience;  we  answer,  that 
the  law  does  not  excuse  m'm  by  intention,  and  that 
all  other  excuses  are  fraudulent. 


128 


CHAPTER  XV. 


A  LIE  is  a  breach  of  promise:  for  whoever  serious- 
ly addresses  his  discourse  to  another,  tacitly  promises 
to  speak  the  truth,  because  he  knows  that  the  truth 
is  expected. 

Or  the  obligation  of  veracity  may  be  made  out 
from  the  direct  ill  consequences  of  lying  to  social 
happiness.  Which  consequences  consist,  either  in 
some  specific  injury  to  particular  individuals,  or  in 
the  destruction  of  that  confidence  which  is  essential 
to  the  intercourse  of  human  life;  for  which  latter 
reason,  a  lie  may  be  pernicious  in  its  general  tenden- 
cy, and  therefore  criminal,  though  it  produce  no  par- 
ticular or  visible  mischief  to  any  one. 

There  are  falsehoods  which  are  not  lies;  that  is, 
which  are  not  criminal:  as, 

1.  Where  no  one  is  deceived;    which   is  the  case 
in  parables,  fables,  novels,  jests,  tales  to  create  mirth, 
ludicrous  embellishments  of  a  story,   where  the   de- 
clared design  of  the  speaker  is  not  to  inform  but  to 
divert;  compliments  in   the  subscription  of  a  letter, 
a  servant's  denying  his  master,  a  prisoner's  pleading 
not  guilty,  an  advocate  asserting  the  justice,  or  his 
belief  of  the  justice,  of  his  client's  cause.     In  such  in- 
stances no  confidence  is  destroyed,  because  none  was 
reposed;  no  promise  to  speak   the  truth  is   violated, 
because  none  was  given,  or  understood  to  be  given. 

2.  Where  the  person  to  whom  you  speak  has  no 
right  to  know  the  truth,  or,  more  properly,  where  lit- 
tle or  no  inconveniency  results  from  the  want  of  con- 
fidence in  such  cases;  as  where  you  tell  a  falsehood 
to  a  madman  for  his  own  advantage ;  to  a  robber  to 
conceal  your  property;    to  an  assassin   to   defeat  or 
divert  him  from  his  purpose.     The  particular  conse- 
quence is  by  the  supposition  beneficial;  and  as  to  the 
general  consequence,  the   worst   that  can  happen  is, 
that    the  madman,  the  robber,   the  assassin  will  not 
trust  you  again;  which  (beside  that  the  first  is  inca- 
pable of  deducing  regular   conclusions  from  having 


124  LIES. 

been  once  deceived,  and  the  last  two  not  likely  to 
come  a  second  time  in  your  way)  is  sufficiently  com- 
pensated by  the  immediate  benefit  which  you  propose 
by  the  falsehood. 

It  is  upon  this  principle  that,  by  the  laws  of  war,  it 
is  allowed  to  deceive  an  enemy  by  feints,  false  co- 
lours,* spies,  false  intelligence,  and  the  like;  but  by 
no  means  in  treaties,  truces,  signals  of  capitulation  or 
surrender:  and  the  difference  is  that  the  former  sup- 
pose hostilities  to  continue,  the  latter  are  calculated 
to  terminate  or  suspend  them.  In  the  conduct  of  war, 
and  whilst  the  war  continues  there  is  no  use,  or  rath- 
er no  place  for  confidence  betwixt  the  contending  par- 
ties; but  in  whatever  relates  to  the  termination  of 
war,  the  most  religious  fidelity  is  expected,  because 
without  it  wars  could  not  cease  nor  the  victors  be 
secure,  but  by  the  entire  destruction  of  the  vanquished. 
Many  people  indulge,  in  serious  discourse,  a  habit 
of  fiction  and  exaggeration  in  the  accounts  they  give 
of  themselves,  of  their  acquaintance,  or  of  the  extra- 
ordinary things  which  they  have  seen  or  heard:  and 
so  long  as  the  facts  they  relate  are  indifferent,  and 
their  narratives,  though  false,  are  inoffensive,  it  may 
seem  a  superstitious  regard  to  truth  to  censure  them 
merely  for  truth's  sake. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  pro- 
nounce beforehand  with  certainty,  concerning  any 
lie,  that  it  is  inoffensive.  Volat  irrevocabile ;  and 
collects  sometimes  accretions  in  its  flight,  which  en- 
tirely change  its  nature.  It  may  owe  possibly  its 
mischief  to  the  officiousness  or  misrepresentation  of 
those  who  circulate  it;  but  the  mischief  is,  neverthe- 


*  There  have  been  two  or  three  instances  of  late,  of  Eng- 
lish ships  decoying  an  enemy  into  their  power,  by  counter- 
feiting signals  of  distress  ;  an  artifice  which  ought  to  be  re- 
probated by  the  common  indignation  of  mankird  !  for,  a  few 
examples  of  captures  effected  by  this  stratagem  would  put  an 
end  to  that  promptitude  in  affording  assistance  to  ships  in 
distress,  which  is  the  best  virtue  in  a  seafaring  character, 
and  by  which  the  perils  of  navigation  are  diminished  to  all. 
—A.  D.  1775. 


LIES.  125 

less,  in  some  degree  chargeable  upon  the  original 
editor. 

Li  the  next  place,  this  liberty  in  conversation  de- 
feats its  own  end.  Much  of  the  pleasure  and  all  the 
benefit  of  conversation  depends  upon  our  opinion  of 
the  speaker's  veracity:  for  which  this  rule  leaves  no 
foundation.  The  faith  indeed  of  a  hearer  must  be 
extremely  perplexed  who  considers  the  speaker,  or  be- 
lieves that  the  speaker  considers  himself,  as  under  no 
obligation  to  adhere  to  truth,  but  according  to  the 
particular  importance  of  what  he  relates. 

But  beside  and  above  both  these  reasons,  white  lies 
always  introduce  others  of  a  darker  complexion.  I 
have  seldom  known  any  one  who  deserted  truth  in 
trifles,  that  could  be  trusted  in  matters  of  importance. 
Nice  distinctions  are  out  of  the  question,  upon  occa- 
sions which,  like  those  of  speech,  return  every  hour. 
The  habit,  therefore,  of  lying,  when  once  formed,  is 
easily  extended  to  serve  the  designs  of  malice  or  in- 
terest;— like  all  habits,  it  spreads  indeed  of  itself. 

Pious  frauds,  as  they  are  improperly  enough  called, 
pretended  inspirations,  forged  books,  counterfeit  mira- 
cles, are  impositions  of  a  more  serious  nature.  It  13 
possible  that  they  may  sometimes,  though  seldom, 
have  been  set  up  and  encouraged  with  a  design  to  do 
good;  but  the  good  they  aim  at  requires  that  the  be- 
lief of  them  should  be  perpetual,  which  is  hardly  pos- 
sible; and  the  detection  of  the  fraud  is  sure  to  dis- 
parage the  credit  of  all  pretensions  of  the  same  nature. 
Christianity  has  suffered  more  injury  from  this  cause 
than  from  all  other  causes  put  together. 

As  there  may  be  falsehoods  which  are  not  lies,  so 
thsre  may  be  lies  without  literal  or  direct  falsehood. 
An  opening  is  always  left  for  this  species  of  prevari- 
cation, when  the  literal  and  grammatical  significa- 
tion of  a  sentence  is  different  from  the  popular  and 
customary  meaning.  It  is  the  wilful  deceit  that 
makes  the  lie;  and  we  wilfully  deceive  when  our  ex- 
pressions are  not  true  in  the  sense  in  which  we  believe 
the  hearer  to  apprehend  them:  besides  that  it  is  ab- 
surd to  contend  for  any  sense  of  words  in  opposition 

VOL.  I  11  * 


126  OATHS. 

to  usage ;  for  all  senses  of  al!  words  are  founded  upon 
usage,  and  upon  nothing  else. 

Or  a  man  may  act  a  lie;  as  by  pointing  his  finger  in 
a  wrong  direction  when  a  traveller  inquires  of  him 
his  road;  or  when  a  tradesman  shuts  up  his  windows 
to  induce  his  creditors  to  believe  that  he  is  abroad: 
for  to  all  moral  purposes,  and  therefore  as  to  veracity, 
speech  and  action  are  the  same;  speech  being  only  a 
mode  of  action. 

Or,  lastly,  there  may  be  lies  of  omission.  A  writer 
of  English  history,  who,  in  his  account  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  First,  should  wilfully  suppress  any  evi- 
dence of  that  prince's  despotic  measures  and  designs, 
might  be  said  to  lie;  for,  by  entitling  his  book  a  His- 
tory of  England,  he  engages  to  relate  the  whole  truth 
of  the  history,  or,  at  least,  all  that  he  knows  of  it 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


1.  Forms  of  Oaths. 

2.  Signification. 

3.  Lawfulness. 

4.  Obligation. 

5.  What  Oaths  do  not  bind. 

6.  In  what  sense  Oaths  are  to  be  interpreted. 

1.  THE  forms  of  oaths,  like  other  religious  ceremo- 
nies, have  in  all  ages  been  various;  consisting  how- 
ever, for  the  most  part  of  some  bodily  action,*  and  of 
a  prescribed  form  of  words.  Amongst  the  Jews,  the 

*  It  is  commonly  thought  that  oaths  are  denominated  cor- 
poral oaths  from  the  bodily  action  which  accompanios  them, 
of  laying  the  right  hand  upon  a  book  containing  the  four 
Gospels.  This  opinion,  however,  appears  to  be  a  mistake; 
for  the  term  is  borrowed  from  the  ancient  usage  of  touching, 
on  these  occasions,  the  corporate  or  cloth  which  covered 
the  consecrated  elements. 


OATHS.  127 

juror  held  up  his  right  hand  towards  heaven,  which 
explains  a  passage  in  the  144th  Psalm;  "Whose 
mouth  speaketh  vanity,  and  their  right  hand  is  a 
right  hand  of  falsehood."  The  same  form  is  retained 
in  Scotland  still.  Amongst  the  same  Jews  an  oath 
of  fidelity  was  taken,  by  the  servant's  putting  his 
hand  under  the  thigh  of  his  lord,  as  Eliezer  did  to 
Abraham,  Gen.  xxiv.  2;  from  whence,  with  no  great 
variation,  is  derived  perhaps  the  form  of  doing  homage 
at  this  day,  by  putting  the  hands  between  the  knees, 
and  within  the  hands  of  the  liege. 

Amongst  the  Greeks  and  Romans  the  form  varied 
with  the  subject  and  occasion  of  the  oath.  In  private 
contracts  the  parties  took  hold  of  each  other's  hand, 
whilst  they  swore  to  the  performance ;  or  they  touch- 
ed the  altar  of  the  god  by  whose  divinity  they  swore. 
Upon  more  solemn  occasions  it  was  the  custom  to 
slay  a  victim;  and  the  beast  being  struck  down 
with  certain  ceremonies  and  invocations,  gave  birth 
to  the  expressions  Tg^ve/v  S^KOV  ferire  pactum ;  and 
to  our  English  phrase  translated  from  these,  of  "  strik- 
ing a  bargain." 

The  forms  of  oaths  in  Christian  countries  are  also 
very  different;  but  in  no  country  in  the  world,  I  be- 
lieve, worse  contrived  either  to  convey  the  meaning  or 
impress  the  obligation  of  an  oath,  than  in  our  own. 
The  juror  with  us,  after  repeating  the  promise  or 
affirmation  which  the  oath  is  intended  to  confirm, 
adds,  "  So  help  me  God:"  or  more  frequently  the 
substance  of  the  oath  is  repeated  to  the  juror  by  the 
officer  or  magistrate  who  administers  it,  adding  in 
the  conclusion,  "  So  help  you  God."  The  energy  01 
the  sentence  resides  in  the  particle  so ;  so,  that  is, 
hac  lege,  upon  condition  of  my  speaking  the  truth  or 
performing  this  promise,  and  not  otherwise,  may  God 
help  me.  The  juror,  whilst  he  hears  or  repeats  the 
words  of  the  oath,  holds  his  right  hand  upon  a  Bible 
or  other  book  containing  the  four  Gospels.  The  con- 
clusion of  the  oath  sometimes  runs,  "  Ita  me  Deus 
adjuvet,  et  hose  sancta  evangelia,"  or  "  So  help  me 
God,  and  the  contents  of  this  book;"  which  last 
clause  forms  a  connexion  between  the  words  and 


128  OATHS. 

action  of  the  juror,  that  before  was  wanting.  The 
juror  then  kisses  the  book:  the  kiss,  however,  seems 
rather  an  act  of  reverence  to  the  contents  of  the  book 
(as,  in  the  popish  ritual,  the  priest  kisses  the  Gospel 
before  he  reads  it,)  than  any  part  of  the  oath. 

This  obscure  and  elliptical  form,  together  with  the 
levity  and  frequency  with  which  it  is  administered, 
has  brought  about  a  general  inadvertency  to  the  obli- 
gation of  oaths;  which,  both  in  a  religious  and  poli- 
tical view,  is  much  to  be  lamented:  and  it  merits 
public  consideration,  whether  the  requiring  of  oaths 
on  so  many  frivolous  occasions,  especially  in  the  Cus- 
toms, and  in  the  qualification  for  petty  offices,  has 
any  other  effect  than  to  make  them  cheap  in  the 
minds  of  the  people.  A  pound  of  tea  cannot  travel 
regularly  from  the  ship  to  the  consumer,  without 
costing  half  a  dozen  oaths  at  the  least;  and  the  same 
security  for  the  due  discharge  of  their  office,  namely, 
that  of  an  oath,  is  required  from  a  churchwarden  and 
an  archbishop,  from  a  petty  constable  and  the  chief- 
justice  of  England.  Let  the  law  continue  its  own 
sanctions,  if  they  be  thought  requisite;  but  let  it  spare 
the  solemnity  of  an  oath.  And  where,  from  the  wan 
of  something  better  to  depend  upon,  it  is  necessary  to 
accept  men's  own  word  or  own  account,  let  it  annex 
to  prevarication,  penalties  proportioned  to  the  public 
mischief  of  the  offence. 

2.  But  whatever   be  the  form  of  an  oath,  the  sig- 
nification is  the  same.     It  is  the  "  calling  upon  God 
to  witness,  i.  e.  to  take  notice  of  what  we  say;"  and 
it   is    "  invoking    his    vengeance    or   renouncing  his 
favour,   if  what   we  say  be  false,  or  what  we  promise 
be  not  performed." 

3.  Quakers  and   Moravians  refuse   to  swear  upon 
any  occasion;  founding  their  scruples  concerning  the 
lawfulness  of  oaths  upon  our  Saviour's  prohibition, 
Matt.  v.  34.  "  I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all." 

The  answer  which  we  give  to  this  objection  cannot 
be  understood,  without  first  stating  the  whole  pas- 
gage:  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by  them 
of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  forswear  thyself,  but  shalt 
perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths.  But  I  say  unto 


OATHS.  129 

you,  Swear  not  at  all ;  neither  by  heaven,  for  it  is  God's 
throne;  nor  by  the  earth,  for  it  is  his  footstool;  nei- 
ther by  Jerusalem,  for  it  is  the  city  of  the  great  King 
Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head,  because  thoii 
canst  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black.  But  let 
your  communication  be,  Yea,  yea;  Nay;  nay:  for 
whatsoever  is  more  than  these,  cometh  of  evil." 

To  reconcile  with  this  passage  of  Scripture  the 
practice  of  swearing  or  of  taking  oaths  when  requir- 
ed by  law,  the  following  observations  must  be  attend- 
ed to: — 

1.  It  does  not  appear,  that  swearing  "  by  heaven," 
"by  the  earth,"  "  by  Jerusalem,"  or  "by  their  own 
head,"  was  a  form  of  swearing  ever  made  use  of 
amongst  the  Jews  in  judicial  oaths:  and  consequently, 
it  is  not  probable  that  they  were  judicial  oaths  which 
Christ   had  in  his  mind   when   he    mentioned  those 
instances. 

2.  As  to  the   seeming  universality  of  the  prohibi- 
tion, "  Swear  not  at  all,"  the  emphatic  clause  "  not  at 
all"  is  to   be  read  in   connexion  with  what  follows; 
"  not  at  all,"  i.  e,  neither  "  by  the  heaven,"  nor  "  by 
the  earth,"  nor  "  by  Jerusalem,"  nor  "  by  thy  head:" 
"  not  at  air9    does  not  mean  upon  no  occasion,  but 
by    none  of  these    forms.      Our  Saviour's    argument 
seems  to  suppose,  that  the  people  to  whom  he  spake 
made  a  distinction  between  swearing  directly  by  the 
"  name  of  God,"  and   swearing  by  those  inferior  ob- 
jects of  veneration,    "  the  heavens,"  "  the  earth," 
"  Jerusalem,"    or  "  their  own  head."     In  opposition 
to  which  distinction  he  tells  them,  that  on  account  of 
the  relation  which   these  things  bore  to  the  Supreme 
Being,   to   swear  by   any  of  them  was  in  effect  and 
substance  to  swear  by  him  ;  "  by  heaven,  for  it  is  his 
throne;  by  the   earth,  for  it  is  his  footstool;  by  Jeru- 
salem, for  it  is  the  city  of  the  great  King;  by  thy  head, 
for  it  is  his  workmanship,  not  thine, — thou  canst  not 
make  one  hair  white  or  black:"  for  which  reason  he 
says,  "  Swear  not  at  aZ/,"  that  is,  neither  directly  by 
God,  noi  indirectly  by  any  thing  related  to  him.     This 
interpretation   is  greatly  confirmed  by  a   passage  in 
the  twenty-third  chapter  of  the  same  Gospel,  where 


130  OATHS. 

a  similar  distinction,  made  by  the   Scribes  and  Pha- 
risees, is  replied  to  in  the  same  manner. 

3.  Our  Saviour  himself  being  "  adjured  by  tho 
living  God,"  to  declare  whether  he  was  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God,  or  not,  condescended  to  answer  the 
high-priest,  without  making  any  objection  to  the  oath 
(for  such  it  was)  upon  which  he  examined  him. — 
"  God  is  my  witness ,"  says  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans, 
"  that  without  ceasing  I  make  mention  of  you  in  my 
prayers:"  and  to  the  Corinthians  still  more  strongly, 
"  /  call  God  for  a  record  upon  my  soul,  that  to 
spare  you,  I  came  not  as  yet  to  Corinth."  Both 
these  expressions  contain  the  nature  of  oaths.  The 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  speaks  of  the  custom  of  swear- 
ing judicially,  without  any  mark  of  censure  or  disap- 
probation: "  Men  verily  swear  by  the  greater;  an^ 
an  oath,  for  confirmation,  is  to  them  an  end  of  all 
strife." 

Upon  the  strength  of  these  reasons,  we  explain  on; 
Saviour's  words  to  relate,  not  to  judicial  oaths,  but  t« 
the  practice  of  vain,  wanton,  and  unauthorized  swear 
ing  in  common  discourse.  St.  James's  words,  chap 
v.  12.  are  not  so  strong  as  our  Saviour's,  and  there 
fore  admit  the  same  explanation  with  more  ease. 

IV.  Oaths  are  nugatory,  that  is,  carry  with  them 
no  proper  force  of  obligation,  unless  we  believe  that 
God  will  punish  false  swearing  with  more  severity 
than  a  simple  lie  or  breach  of  promise;  for  which 
belief  there  are  the  following  reasons: — 

1.  Perjury  is  a  sin  of  greater  deliberation.      The 
juror  has   the  thought  of  God  and  of  religion  upon 
his  mind  at  the   time;  at   least,   there   are  very  few 
who  can  shake  them  off  entirely.     He  offends,  there- 
fore, if  he  do  offend,   with  a  high  hand;  in  the  face, 
that   is,  and   in  defiance   of  the  sanctions  of  religion. 
His  offence  implies  a  disbelief  or  contempt  of  God's 
knowledge,  power,  and  justice;  which  cannot  be  said 
of  a   lie,  where  there  is  nothing  to  carry  the  mind  to 
any  reflection  upon  the  Deity  or  the  Divine  attributes 
at  all. 

2.  Perjury  violates  a  superior   confidence.      Man- 
kind must  trust  to  one  another;  and  they  have  nothing 


OATHS.  131 

better  to  trust  to  than  one  another's  oath.  Hence 
legal  adjudications,  which  govern  and  affect  every 
right  and  interest  on  this  side  of  the  grave,  of  necessity 
proceed  and  depend  upon  oaths.  Perjury,  therefore, 
in  its  general  consequence,  strikes  at  the  security  of 
reputation,  property,  and  even  of  life  itself.  A  lie 
cannot  do  the  same  mischief,  because  the  same  credit 
is  not  given  to  it.* 

3.  God  directed  the  Israelites  to  swear  by  his 
name;t  and  was  pleased,  "in  order  to  show  the  im- 
mutability of  his  own  counsel  ;":£  to  confirm  his  cove- 
nant with  that  people  by  an  oath:  neither  of  which 
it  is  probable  he  would  have  done,  had  he  not  intend- 
ed to  represent  oaths  as  having  some  meaning  and  effect 
beyond  the  obligation  of  a  bare  promise;  which  effect 
must  be  owing  to  the  severer  punishment  with  which 
he  will  vindicate  the  authority  of  oaths. 

V.  Promissory  oaths  are  not  binding  where  the  pro- 
mise itself  would  not  be  so:  for  the  several  cases  of 
which,  see  the  Chapter  of  Promises. 

VI.  As  oaths  are  designed  for  the  security  of  the 
imposer,  it  is  manifest  that  they  must  be  interpreted 
and  performed  in  the  sense  in  which  the  imposer  in- 
tends them;  otherwise,  they  afford  no  security  to  him. 
And  this  is  the  meaning  and  reason  of  the  rule,  "  ju- 
rare  in  animum  imponentis;"  which  rule  the  reader  is 
desired  to  carry  along  with  him,  whilst  we  proceed  to 
consider  certain  particular  oaths,  which  are  either  of 
greater  importance,  or  more  likely  to  fall  in  our  way, 
than  others. 


*  Except,  indeed,  where  a  Quaker's  or  Moravian's  affir- 
mation is  accepted  in  the  place  of  an  oath ;  in  which  case,  a 
lie  partakes,  so  far  as  this  reason  extends,  of  the  nature  and 
guilt  of  perjury. 

Deut.  vi.  13 ;  x.  20.  t  Heb.  vi.  17. 


OATH    IN    EVIDENCED 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

OATH    IN    EVIDENCE. 

THE  witness  swears  "  to  speak  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  touching  the  matter 
in  question." 

Upon  which  it  may  be  observed,  that  the  designed 
concealment  of  any  truth,  which  relates  to  the  matter 
in  agitation,  is  as  much  a  violation  of  the  oath  as  to 
testify  a  positive  falsehood;  and  this,  whether  the  wit- 
ness be  interrogated  as  to  that  particular  point  or  not. 
For  when  the  person  to  be  examined  is  sworn  upon  a 
voir  dire,  that  is,  in  order  to  inquire  whether  he  ought 
to  be  admitted  to  give  evidence  in  the  cause  at  all,  the 
form  runs  thus:  "  You  shall  true  answer  make  to  all 
such  questions  as  shall  be  asked  you:"  but  when  he 
comes  to  be  sworn  in  chief,  he  swears  "  to  speak  the 
whole  truth,"  without  restraining  it»  as  before,  to  the 
questions  that  shall  be  asked:  which  difference  shows 
that  the  law  intends,  in  this  latter  case,  to  require  of 
the  witness,  that  he  give  a  complete  and  unreserved 
account  of  what  he  knows  of  the  subject  of  the  trial, 
whether  the  questions  proposed  to  him  reach  the  ex- 
tent of  his  knowledge  or  not.  So  that  if  it  be  inquir- 
ed of  the  witness  afterwards,  why  he  did  not  inform 
the  court  so  and  sp,  it  is  not  a  sufficient,  though  a 
very  common  answer,  to  say,  "  because  it  was  never 
asked  me." 

I  know  but  one  exception  to  this  rule;  which  is, 
when  a  full  discovery  of  the  truth  tends  to  accuse  the 
witness  himself  of  some  legal  crime.  The  law  of 
England  constrains  no  man  to  become  his  own  ac- 
cuser; consequently  imposes  the  oath  of  testimony 
with  this  tacit  reservation.  But  the  exception  must 
be  confined  to  legal  crimes.  A  point  of  honour,  of 
delicacy,  or  of  reputation,  may  make  a  witness  back- 
ward to  disclose  some  circumstance  with  which  he  is 
acquainted;  but  will  in  no  wise  justify  his  conceal- 
ment of  the  truth,  unless  it  could  be  shown  that  the 
law  which  imposes  the  oath  intended  to  allow  this 


OATH    OF  ALLEGIANCE.  133 

indulgence  to  such  motives.  The  exception  of  which 
we  are  speaking  is  also  withdrawn  by  a  compact  be- 
tween the  magistrate  and  the  witness,  when  an  ac- 
complice is'  admitted  to  give  evidence  against  the 
partners  of  his  crime. 

Tenderness  to  the  prisoner,  although  a  specious 
apology  for  concealment,  is  no  just  excuse:  for  if  this 
plea  be  thought  sufficient,  it  takes  the  administration 
of  penal  justice  out  of  the  hands  of  judges  and  juries, 
and  makes  it  depend  upon  the  temper  of  prosecutors 
and  witnesses. 

Questions  may  be  asked,  which  are  irrelative  to  the 
cause,  which  affect  the  witness  himself,  or  some  third 
person;  in  which,  and  in  all  cases  where  the  witness 
doubts  of  the  pertinency  and  propriety  of  the  question, 
he  ought  to  refer  his  doubts  to  the  court.  The  an- 
swer of  the  court,  in  relaxation  of  the  oath,  is  autho- 
rity enough  to  the  witness;  for  the  law  which  im- 
poses the  oath  may  remit  what  it  will  of  the  obliga- 
tion; and  it  belongs  to  the  court  to  declare  what  the 
mind  of  the  law  is.  Nevertheless,  it  cannot  be  said 
universally,  that  the  answer  of  the  court  is  conclusive 
upon  the  conscience  of  the  witness;  for  his  obligation 
depends  upon  what  he  apprehended,  at  the  time  of 
taking  the  oath,  to  be  the  design  of  the  law  in  im- 
posing it,  and  no  after  requisition  or  explanation  by 
the  court  can  carry  the  obligation  beyond  that. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

OATH    OF  ALLEGIANCE. 

*«  I  DO  sincerely  promise  and  swear,  that  I  will  be 
faithful,  and  bear  true  allegiance  to  his  Majesty  King 
GEORGE."  Formerly  the  oath  of  allegiance  ran 
thus:  "  I  do  promise  to  be  true  and  faithful  to  the  king 
and  his  heirs,  and  truth  and  faith  to  bear,  of  life  and 
limb,  and  terrene  honour;  and  not  to  know  or  hear  of 
any  ill  or  damage  intended  him,  without  defending  him 
therefrom;"  and  was  altered  at  the  Revolution  to  the 

VOL.  i.  12 


184  OATH  OF  ALLEGIANCE. 

present  form.  So  that  the  present  oath  is  a  relaxation 
of  the  old  one.  And  as  the  oath  was  intended  to 
ascertain,  not  so  much  the  extent  of  the  subject's  obe- 
dience, as  the  person  to  whom  it  was  due,  the  legisla- 
ture seems  to  have  wrapped  up  its  meaning  upon  the 
former  point,  in  a  word  purposely  made  choice  of  for 
its  general  and  indeterminate  signification. 

It  will  be  most  convenient  to  consider,  first,  what 
the  oath  excludes  as  inconsistent  with  it;  secondly, 
what  it  permits. 

1.  The  oath  excludes  all  intention  to  support  the 
claim  or  pretensions  of  any  other  person  or  persons  to 
the  crown   and  government,  than  the   reigning  sove- 
reign.     A  Jacobite,  who  is  persuaded  of  the  Preten- 
der's right  to  the  crown,  and  who   moreover  designs 
to  join  with  the  adherents  to  that  cause  to  assert  this 
right,  whenever  a  proper  opportunity  with  a  reasona- 
ble prospect  of  success   presents  itself,   cannot   take 
the  oath  of  allegiance;  or,  if  he    could,  the   oath  of 
abjuration  follows,  which  contains  an  express  renun- 
ciation of  all   opinions  in  favour  of  the  claim  of  the 
exiled  family. 

2.  The  oath  excludes  all  design,  at  the  tune,  of 
attempting  to  depose  the  reigning  prince,  for  any  rea- 
son whatever.     Let  the  justice  of  the  Revolution  be 
what  it  would,  no  honest  man  could  have  taken  even 
the  present  oath  of  allegiance  to  James  the  Second, 
who  entertained,  at  the  time  of  taking  it,  a  design  of 
joining  in  the  measures   which  were   entered  into  to 
dethrone  him. 

3.  The  oath  forbids  the  taking  up  of  arms  against 
the  reigning   prince,  with  views  of  private  advance- 
ment, or  from  motives  of  personal  resentment  or  dis- 
like.    It  is  possible  to  happen  in  this,  what  frequently 
happens  in  despotic  governments,  that  an  ambitious 
general,  at  the  head  of  the  military  force  of  the  nation, 
might,   by  a  conjecture  of  fortunate  circumstances, 
and  a  great  ascendency  over  the  minds  of  the  soldiery, 
depose  the  prince  upon  the  throne,  and  make  way  to 
it  for  himself,  or  for  some  creature  of  his  own.     A 
peison    in  this    situation  would    be  withholden  from 
euch  an  attempt  by  the  oath  of  allegiance,  if  he  paid 


OATH    OF  ALLEGIANCE.  135 

regard  to  it.  If  there  were  any  who  engaged  in  the 
rebellion  of  the  year  forty-five,  with  the  expectation  of 
titles,  estates,  or  preferment;  or  because  they  were 
disappointed,  and  thought  themselves  neglected  and 
ill  used  at  court;  or  because  they  entertained  a  family 
animosity,  or  personal  resentment,  against  the  king, 
the  favourite,  or  the  minister; — if  any  were  induced 
to  take  up  arms  by  these  motives,  they  added  to  the 
many  crimes  of  an  unprovoked  rebellion,  that  of  wilful 
and  corrupt  perjury.  If,  in  the  late  American  war, 
the  same  motives  determined  others  to  connect  them- 
selves with  that  opposition,  their  part  in  it  was  charge- 
able with  perfidy  and  falsehood  to  their  oath,  what- 
ever was  the  justice  of  the  opposition  itself,  or  how- 
ever well  founded  their  own  complaints  might  be  of 
private  injury. 

We  are  next  to   consider  what  the  oath  of  allegi 
ance  permits,  or  does  not  require. 

1.  It  permits   resistance   to   the   king,  when  his  ill 
behaviour  or  imbecility  is  such  as  to  make  resistance 
beneficial  to  the  community.     It  may  fairly  be  pre 
sumed  that  the  Convention  Parliament,  which  intro- 
duced the  oath  in  its  present  form,  did  not  intend,  by 
imposing  it,  to  exclude  all  resistance,  since  the  mem- 
bers of  that  legislature  had  many  of  them  recently 
taken  up   arms   against  James  the  Second,  and  the 
very  authority  by  which  they  sat  together  was  itself 
the  effect  of  a  successful  opposition  to  an  acknow- 
ledged sovereign.     Some    resistance,    therefore,  was 
meant  to  be  allowed;  and,  if  any,  it  must   be  that 
which  has  the  public  interest  for  its  object. 

2.  The  oath  does  not   require  obedience   to  such 
commands  of  the  king  as  are  unauthorized  by  law. 
No    such  obedience  is  implied  by  the  terms  of  the 
oath:  the  fidelity  there  promised  is  intended  of  fide- 
lity in  opposition  to  his  enemies,  and  not  in  opposition 
to  law;  and  allegiance,  at  the  utmost,  can  only  sig- 
nify obedience   to  lawful  commands.      Therefore,  if 
the  king  should  issue  a  proclamation,  levying  money, 
or  imposing  any  service  or  restraint  upon  the  subject, 
beyond  what  the  crown  is  empowered  by  law  to  en- 
ioin,  there  would  exist  no  sort  of  obligation  to  obey 


136  OATH  AGAINST  BRIBERY. 

such  a  proclamation,  in  consequence  of  having  taken 
the  oath  of  allegiance. 

3.  The  oath  does  not  require  that  we  should  con- 
tinue our  allegiance  to  the  king,  after  he  is  actually 
and  absolutely  deposed,  driven  into  exile,  carried  away 
captive,  or  otherwise  rendered  incapable  of  exercising 
the  regal  office,  whether  by  his  fault  or  without  it. 
The  promise  of  allegiance  implies,  and  is  understood 
by  all  parties,  to  suppose  that  the  person  to  whom  the 
promise  is  made,  continues  king; — continues,  that  is, 
to  exercise  the  power,  and  afford  the  protection,  which 
belongs  to  the  office  of  king:  for  it  is  the  possession 
of  this  power  which  makes  such  a  particular  person 
the  object  of  the  oath;  without  it,  why  should  I  swear 
allegiance  to  this  man,  rather  than  to  any  man  in  the 
kingdom  ?  Besides  which,  the  contrary  doctrine  is 
burthened  with  this  consequence,  that  every  conquest, 
revolution  of  government,  or  disaster  which  befalls  the 
person  of  the  prince,  must  be  followed  by  perpetual 
and  irremediable  anarchy. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

OATH  AGAINST  BRIBERY  IN  THE    ELECTION   OF 
MEMBERS   OF  PARLIAMENT. 

"  I  DO  swear  I  have  not  received,  or  had,  by  my- 
self, or  any  person  whatsoever  in  trust  for  me,  or  for  my 
use  and  benefit,  directly  or  indirectly,  any  sum  or 
sums  of  money,  office,  place,  or  employment,  gift,  or 
reward,  or  any  promise  or  security  for  any  money, 
office,  employment,  or  gift,  in  order  to  give  my  vote 
at  this  election." 

The  several  contrivances  to  evade  this  oath,  such  as 
the  electors  accepting  money  under  colour  of  borrow- 
ing it,  and  giving  a  promissory  note,  or  other  security 
for  it,  which  is  cancelled  after  the  election;  receiving 
money  from  a  stranger,  or  a  person  in  disguise,  or  out 
of  a  drawer,  or  purse,  left  open  for  the  purpose;  or 
promises  of  money  to  be  paid  after  the  election,  or 


OATH  AGANST  SIMONY.  137 

Stipulating  for  a  place,  living,  or  other  private  advan- 
tage of  any  kind — if  they  escape  the  legal  penalties 
of  perjury,  incur  the  moral  guilt:  for  they  are  mani- 
festly within  the  mischief  and  design  of  the  statute 
which  imposes  the  oath,  and  within  the  terms  indeed 
of  the  oath  itself;  for  the  word  "  indirectly"  is  insert- 
ed on  purpose  to  comprehend  such  cases  as  these 


CHAPTER  XX 


OATH  AGAINST  SIMONY. 


FROM  an  imaginary  resemblance  between  the  pur 
chase  of  a  benefice,  and  Simon  Magus's  attempt  to 
purchase  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (Acts  viii.  19,) 
the  obtaining  of  ecclesiastical  preferment  by  pecuni 
ary  considerations  has  been  termed  Simony. 

The  sale  of  advowsons  is  inseparable  from  the  al- 
lowance of  private  patronage;  as  patronage  would 
otherwise  devolve  to  the  most  indigent,  and  for  that 
reason  the  most  improper  hands  it  could  be  placed  in. 
Nor  did  the  law  ever  intend  to  prohibit  the  passing  of 
advowsons  from  one  patron  to  another;  but  to  restrain 
the  patron,  who  possesses  the  right  of  presenting  at 
the  vacancy,  from  being  influenced,  in  the  choice  of 
his  presentee,  by  a  bribe  or  benefit  to  himself.  It  is 
the  same  distinction  with  that  which  obtains  in*  a 
freeholder's  vote  for  his  representative  in  parliament. 
The  right  of  voting,  that  is,  the  freehold  to  which  the 
right  pertains,  may  be  bought  and  sold  as  freely  as 
any  other  property;  but  the  exercise  of  that  right,  the 
vote  itself,  may  not  be  purchased,  or  influenced  by 
money. 

For  this  purpose,  the  law  imposes  upon  the  pre- 
sentee, who  is  generally  concerned  in  the  simony,  if 
there  be  any,  the  following  oath:  "  I  do  swear,  that 
I  have  made  no  simoniacal  payment,  contract,  or  pro- 
mise, directly  or  indirectly,  by  myself,  or  by  any 
other  to  my  knowledge,  or  with  my  consent,  to  any 
person  or  persons  whatsoever,  for  or  concerning  the 

VOL.  I.  12  * 


138  OATH  AGAINST  SIMONY. 

procuring  and  obtaining  of  this  ecclesiastical  place; 
&c.;  nor  will,  at  any  time  hereafter,  perform,  or  sa- 
tisfy any  such  kind  of  payment,  contract,  or  promise, 
made  by  any  other  without  my  knowledge  or  consent: 
So  help  me  God,  through  Jesus  Christ!" 

It  is  extraordinary  that  Bishop  Gibson  should  have 
thought  this  oath  to  be  against  all  promises  whatso 
ever,  when  the  terms  of  the  oath  expressly  restrain  it 
to  simoniacal  promises;  and  the  law  alone  must  pro- 
nounce what  promises,  as  well  as  what  payments  and 
contracts,  are  simoniacal,  and  consequently  come 
within  the  oath;  and  what  do  not  so. 

Now  the  law  adjudges  to  be  simony, — 

1.  All  payments,  contracts,  or  promises,  made   by 
any  person  for  a  benefice  already  vacant.     The  ad- 
vowson  of  a  void  turn,  by  law,  cannot  be  transferred 
from   one   patron   to   another;  therefore,  if  the   void 
turn  be   procured  by  money,  it  must  be   by   a  pecu- 
niary influence  upon  the  then  subsisting  patron  in  the 
choice  of  his  presentee,  which  is  the  very  practice  the 
law  condemns. 

2.  A  clergyman's  purchasing  of  the  next  turn  of  a 
benefice  for  himself ,  "  directly  or  indirectly,"  that  is, 
by  himself,  or  by  another  person  with  his  money.     It 
does  not  appear  that  the   law  prohibits  a  clergyman 
from  purchasing  the  perpetuity  of  a  patronage,  more 
than  any  other  person:  but  purchasing  the  perpetuity, 
and  forthwith  selling  it  again  with  a  reservation  of  the 
next  turn,  and  with  no  other  design  than  to  possess 
himself  of  the  next  turn,  is  in  fraudem  legis,  and  in- 
consistent with  the  oath. 

3.  The    procuring   of  a   piece    of  preferment,    by 
ceding  to  the  patron  any  rights,  or  probable  rights, 
belonging  to  it.     This  is  simony  of  the  worst  kind: 
for  it  is  not  only  buying   preferment,  but  robbing  the 
succession  to  pay  for  it. 

4.  Promises  to  the  patron  of  a  portion  of  the  profit, 
of  a  remission   of  tithes  or  dues,  or  other  advantage 
out  of  the  produce   of  the  benefice;  which  kind  of 
compact  is  a  pernicious  condescension  in  the  clergy, 
independent  of  the  oath;  for  it   tends  to   introduce  a 
practice,  which  may  very  soon  become   general,  of 


LOCAL  STATUTES  139 

giving  the  revenue  of  churches  to  the  lay  patrons,  and 
supplying  the  duty  by  indigent  stipendiaries. 

5.  General  bonds  of  resignation,  that  is,  bonds  to 
resign  upon  demand. 

I  doubt  not  but  that  the  oath  against  simony  is 
binding  upon  the  consciences  of  those  who  take  it, 
though  I  question  much  the  expediency  of  requiring 
it.  It  is  very  fit  to  debar  public  patrons,  such  as  the 
king,  the  lord  chancellor,  bishops,  ecclesiastical  cor- 
porations, and  the  like,  from  this  kind  of  traffic;  be- 
cause from  them  may  be  expected  some  regard  to  the 
qualifications  of  the  persons  who  they  promote.  But 
the  oath  lays  a  snare  for  the  integrity  of  the  clergy; 
and  I  do  not  perceive,  that  the  requiring  of  it  in  cases 
of  private  patronage  produces  any  good  effect,  suffi- 
cient to  compensate  for  this  danger. 

Where  advowsons  are  holden  along  with  manors,  or 
other  principal  estates,  it  would  be  an  easy  regulation 
to  forbid  that  they  should  ever  hereafter  be  separated; 
and  would,  at  least,  keep  church  preferment  out  of 
the  hands  of  brokers. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

OATHS  TO  OBSERVE   LOCAL  STATUTES. 

MEMBERS  of  colleges  in  the  Universities,  and  of 
other  ancient  foundations,  are  required  to  swear  to  the 
observance  of  their  respective  statutes;  which  obser- 
vance is  become  in  some  cases  unlawful,  in  others  im- 
practicable, in  others  useless,  in  others  inconvenient. 

Unlawful  directions  are  countermanded  by  the  au- 
thority which  made  them  unlawful. 

Impracticable  directions  are  dispensed  with  by  the 
necessity  of  the  case. 

The  Oiily  question  is,  how  far  the  members  of  these 
societies  *nay  take  upon  themselves  to  judge  of  the  in- 
conveniency  of  any  particular  direction,  and  make 
that  a  reason  for  laying  aside  the  observation  of  it. 


140  LOCAL  STATUTES. 

The  animus  imponentis,  which  is  the  measure  of 
the  juror's  duty,  seems  to  be  satisfied,  when  nothing 
is  omitted,  but  what,  from  some  change  in  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  was  prescribed,  it  may  fairly 
be  presumed  that  the  founder  himself  would  have  dis- 
pensed with. 

To  bring  a  case  within  this  rule,  the  inconveniency 
must — 

1.  Be  manifest;  concerning  which  there  is  no  doubt. 

2.  It  must  arise  from  some  change  in  the  circum- 
stances of  the  institution;  for,  let  the  inconveniency 
be  what  it  will,  if  it  existed  at  the  time  of  the  founda- 
tion, it  must  be  presumed  that  the   founder  did  not 
deem   the  avoiding  of  it   of  sufficient   importance  to 
alter  his  plan. 

3.  The  direction  of  the  statute  must  not  only  be  in- 
convenient in  the  general  (for  so  may  the  institution 
itself  be,)  but  prejudicial  to  the  particular  end  pro- 
posed  by  the  institution:  for  it  is  this  last    circum- 
stance which  proves  that  the  founder  would  have  dis- 
pensed with  it  in  pursuance  of  his  own  purpose. 

The  statutes  of  some  colleges  forbid  the  speaking  of 
any  language  but  Latin  within  the  walls  of  the  col- 
lege; direct  that  a  certain  number,  and  not  fewer  than 
that  number,  be  allowed  the  use  of  an  apartment 
amongst  them;  that  so  many  hours  of  each  day  be  em- 
ployed in  public  exercises,  lectures,  or  disputations; 
and  some  other  articles  of  discipline  adapted  to  the 
tender  years  of  the  students  who  in  former  times  re- 
sorted to  universities.  Were  colleges  to  retain  such 
rules,  nobody  nowadays  would  come  near  them.  They 
are  laid  aside  therefore,  though  parts  of  the  statutes, 
and  as  such  included  within  the  oath,  not  merely  be- 
cause they  are  inconvenient,  but  because  there  is  suf- 
ficient reason  to  believe,  that  the  founders  themselves 
would  have  dispensed  with  them,  as  subversive  of  their 
own  designs. 


SUBSCRIPTION  TO  ARTICLES  OF  RELIGION.    141 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

SUBSCRIPTION  TO  ARTICLES  OF  RELIGION. 

SUBSCRIPTION  to  articles  of  religion,  though  not 
more  than  a  declaration  of  the  subscriber's  assent, 
may  properly  enough  be  considered  in  connexion  with 
the  subject  of 'oaths,  because  it  is  governed  by  the 
same  rule  of  interpretation: 

Which  rule  is  the  animus  imponentis. 

The  inquiry,  therefore,  concerning  subscription,  will 
be,  quis  imposuit,  et  quo  animo? 

The  bishop  who  receives  the  subscription  is  not  the 
imposer,  any  more  than  the  crier  of  a  court,  who  ad- 
ministers the  oath  to  the  jury  and  witnesses,  is  the  per- 
son that  imposes  it;  nor,  consequently,  is  the  private 
opinion  or  interpretation  of  the  bishop  of  any  signifi- 
cation to  the  subscriber,  one  way  or  other. 

The  compilers  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  not 
to  be  considered  as  the  imposers  of  subscription,  any 
more  than  the  framer  or  drawer  up  of  a  law  is  the  per- 
son that  enacts  it. 

The  legislature  of  the  13th  Eliz.  is  the  imposer, 
whose  intention  the  subscriber  is  bound  to  satisfy. 

They  jvho  contend  that  nothing  less  can  justify  sub- 
scription to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  than  the  actual 
belief  of  each  and  every  separate  proposition  con- 
tained in  them,  must  suppose  that  the  legislature 
expected  the  consent  of  ten  thousand  men,  and  that 
in  perpetual  succession,  not  to  one  controverted  pro- 
position, but  to  many  hundreds.  It  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive how  this  could  be  expected  by  any  who  observed 
the  incurable  diversity  of  human  opinion  upon  all  sub- 
jects short  of  demonstration. 

If  the  authors  of  the  law  did  not  intend  this,  what 
did  they  intend  ? 

They  intended  to  exclude    from  offices  in  the  church, 

1.  All  abettors  of  Popery: 

2.  Anabaptists;  who  were  at  that  time  a  powerful 
party  on  the  Continent. 

3.  The  Puritans;  who  were  hostile  to  an  episcopal 
constitution:  and,  in  general,  the  members  of  such 


142  WILLS. 

leading  sects  or  foreign  establishments  as  threatened 
to  overthrow  our  own. 

Whoever  finds  himself  comprehended  within  these 
descriptions,  ought  not  to  subscribe.  Nor  can  a  sub- 
scriber to  the  Articles  take  advantage  of  any  latitude 
which  our  rule  may  seem  to  allow,  who  is  not  first 
convinced  that  he  is  truly  and  substantially  satisfying 
the  intention  of  the  legislature. 

During  the  present  state  of  ecclesiastical  patronage, 
in  which  private  individuals  are  permitted  to  impose 
teachers  upon  parishes  with  which  they  are  often  little 
or  not  at  alt  connected,  some  limitation  of  the  patron's 
choice  may  be  necessary  to  prevent  unedifying  con- 
tentions between  neighbouring  teachers,  or  between 
the  teachers  and  their  respective  congregations.  But 
this  danger,  if  it  exist,  may  be  provided  against  with 
equal  effect,  by  converting  the  articles  of  faith  into 
articles  of  peace. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


THE  fundamental  question  upon  this  subject  is,  whe 
ther  Wills  are  of  natural  or  of  adventitious  right  ? 
that  is,  whether  the  right  of  directing  the  disposition 
of  property  after  his  death  belongs  to  a  man  in  a  state 
of  nature,  and  by  the  law  of  nature,  or  whether  it  be 
given  him  entirely  by  the  positive  regulations  of  the 
country  he  lives  in  ? 

The  immediate  produce  of  each  man's  personal 
labour,  as  the  tools,  weapons,  and  utensils  which  he 
manufactures,  the  tent  or  hut  that  he  builds,  and  per- 
haps the  flocks  and  herds  which  he  breeds  and  rears, 
are  as  much  his  own  as  the  labour  was  which  he  em- 
ployed upon  them,  that  is,  are  his  property  naturally 
and  absolutely;  and  consequently  he  may  give  or 
leave  them  to  whom  he  pleases,  there  being  nothing 
to  limit  the  continuance  of  his  right,  or  to  restrain  the 
alienation  of  it. 


WILLS.  143 

But  every  other  species  of  property,  especially  pro- 
perty in  land,  stands  upon  a  different  foundation. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  Chapter  upon  Property,  that, 
in  a  state  of  nature,  a  man's  right  to  a  particular  spot 
of  ground  arises  from  his  using  it,  and  his  wanting  it; 
consequently  ceases  with  the  use  and  want:  so  that  at 
his  death  the  estate  reverts  to  the  community,  without 
any  regard  to  the  last  owner's  will,  or  even  any  pre- 
ference of  his  family,  further  than  as  they  become  the 
first  occupiers,  after  him,  and  succeed  to  the  same 
want  and  use. 

Moreover,  as  natural  rights  cannot,  like  rights 
created  by  act  of  parliament,  expire  at  the  end  of  a 
certain  number  of  years;  if  the  testator  have  a  right, 
by  the  law  of  nature,  to  dispose  of  his  property  one 
moment  after  his  death,  he  has  the  same  right  to  di- 
rect the  disposition  of  it  for  a  million  of  ages  after 
him;  which  is  absurd. 

The  ancient  apprehensions  of  mankind  upon  the 
subject  were  conformable  to  this  account  of  it:  for 
wills  have  been  introduced  into  most  countries  by  a 
positive  act  of  the  state;  as  by  the  Laws  of  Solon 
into  Greece;  by  the  Twelve  Tables  into  Rome;  and 
that  not  till  after  a  considerable  progress  had  been 
made  in  legislation,  and  in  the  economy  of  civil  life. 
Tacitus  relates,  that  amongst  the  Germans  they  were 
disallowed;  and  what  is  more  remarkable,  in  this 
country  since  the  Conquest,  lands  could  not  be  de- 
vised by  will,  till  within  little  more  than  two  hundred 
years  ago,  when  this  privilege  was  restored  to  the 
subject,  by  an  act  of  Parliament,  in  the  latter  end  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

No  doubt,  many  beneficial  purposes  are  attained 
by  extending  the  owner's  power  over  his  property 
beyond  his  life,  and  beyond  his  natural  right.  It 
invites  to  industry;  it  encourages  marriage;  it  secures 
the  dutifulness  and  dependency  of  children:  but  a  li- 
mit must  be  assigned  to  the  duration  of  this  power. 
The  utmost  extent  to  which,  in  any  case,  entails  arc 
allowed  by  the  laws  of  England  to  operate,  is  during 
the  lives  in  existence  at  the  death  of  the  testator,  and 


144  WILLS. 

one-and-twenty  years  beyond  these;  after  which,  there 
are  ways  and  means  of  setting  them  aside. 

From  the  consideration  that  wills  are  the  creatures 
of  the  municipal  law  which  gives  them  their  efficacy, 
may  be  deduced  a  determination  of  the  question, 
whether  the  intention  of  the  testator  in  an  informal 
will  be  binding  upon  the  conscience  of  those  who, 
by  operation  of  law,  succeed  to  his  estate.  By  an 
informal  will,  I  mean  a  will  void  in  law  for  want  of 
some  requisite  formality,  though  no  doubt  be  enter- 
tained of  its  meaning  and  authenticity:  as,  suppose  a 
man  make  his  will,  devising  his  freehold  estate  to  his 
sister's  son,  and  the  will  be  attested  by  two  only, 
instead  of  three  subscribing  witnesses;  would  the 
brother's  son,  who  is  heir  at  law  to  the  testator,  be 
bound  in  conscience  to  resign  his  claim  to  the  estate, 
out  of  deference  to  his  uncle's  intention?  or,  on  the 
contrary,  would  not  the  devisee  under  the  will  be 
bound  upon  discovery  of  this  flaw  in  it,  to  surrender 
the  estate,  suppose  he  had  gained  possession  of  it,  to 
the  heir-at-law  ? 

Generaly  speaking,  the  heir-at-law  is  not  bound 
by  the  intention  of  the  testator:  for  the  intention  can 
signify  nothing,  unless  the  person  intending  have  a 
right  to  govern  the  descent  of  the  estate.  That  is  the 
first  question.  Now,  this  right  the  testator  can  only 
derive  from  the  law  of  the  land:  but  the  law  confers 
the  right  upon  certain  conditions,  with  which  condi- 
tions he  has  not  complied;  therefore  the  testator  can 
lay  no  claim  to  the  power  which  he  pretends  to  exer- 
cise, as  he  hath  not  entitled  himself  to  the  benefit  of 
that  law,  by  virtue  of  which  alone  the  estate  ought  to 
attend  his  disposal.  Consequently,  the  devisee  under 
the  will,  who,  by  concealing  this  flaw  in  it,  keeps 
possession  of  the  estate,  is  in  the  situation  of  any 
other  person  who  avails  himself  of  his  neighbour's 
ignorance  to  detain  from  him  his  property.  The  will 
is  so  much  waste  paper,  from  the  defect  of  right  in 
the  person  who  made  it.  Nor  is  this  catching  at  an 
expression  of  law  to  pervert  the  substantial  design  of 
it:  for  I  apprehend  it  to  be  the  deliberate  mind  of 
the  legislature,  that  no  will  should  take  effect  upon 


WILT.S.  145 

real  estates,  unless  authenticated  in  the  precise  man- 
ner which  the  statute  describes.  Had  testamentary 
dispositions  been  founded  in  any  natural  right,  in- 
dependent of  positive  constitutions,  I  should  have 
thought  differently  of  this  question:  for  then  I  should 
have  considered  the  law  rather  as  refusing  its  assist- 
ance to  enforce  the  right  of  the  devisee,  than  as 
extinguishing  or  working  any  alteration  in  the  right 
itself. 

And  after  all,  I  should  choose  to  propose  a  case, 
where  no  consideration  of  pity  to  distress,  of  duty  to 
a  parent,  or  of  gratitude  to  a  benefactor,  interfered 
with  the  general  rule  of  justice. 

The  regard  due  to  kindred  in  the  disposal  of  our 
fortune  (except  the  case  of  lineal  kindred,  which  is 
different,)  arises  either  from  the  respect  we  owe  to  the 
presumed  intention  of  the  ancestor  from  whom  we 
received  our  fortunes,  or  from  the  expectations  which 
we  have  encouraged.  The  intention  of  the  ancestor 
is  presumed  with  greater  certainty,  as  well  as  entitled 
to  more  respect,  the  fewer  degrees  he  is  removed  from 
us;  which  makes  the  difference  in  the  different  de- 
grees of  kindred.  For  instance,  it  maybe  presumed 
to  be  a  father's  intention  and  desire,  that  the  inherit- 
ance which  he  leaves,  after  it  has  served  the  turn  and 
generation  of  one  son,  should  remain  a  provision  for 
the  families  of  his  other  children,  equally  related  and 
dear  to  him  as  the  oldest.  Whoever,  therefore,  with- 
out cause,  gives  away  his  patrimony  from  his  brother's 
or  sister's  family,  is  guilty  not  so  much  of  an  injury 
to  them  as  of  ingratitude  to  his  parent.  The  deference 
due  from  the  possessor  of  a  fortune  to  the  presumed 
desire  of  his  ancestor  will  also  vary  with  this  circum- 
stance; whether  the  ancestor  earned  the  fortune  by 
his  personal  industry,  acquired  it  by  accidental  suc- 
cesses, or  only  transmitted  the  inheritance  which  he 
received. 

Where  a  man's  fortune  is  acquired  by  himself,  and 
he  has  done  nothing  to  excite  expectation,  but  rather 
has  refrained  from  those  particular  attentions  which 
tend  to  cherish  expectation,  he  is  perfectly  disengaged 
from  the  force  of  the  above  reasons,  and  at  liberty  to 

VOL.  i.  13 


146  WILLS. 

leave  his  fortune  to  his  friends,  to  charitable  or  pub- 
lic purposes,  or  to  whom  he  will:  the  same  blood, 
proximity  of  blood,  and  the  like,  are  merely  modes  of 
speech,  implying  nothing  real,  nor  any  obligation  of 
themselves. 

There  is  always,  however,  a  reason  for  providing 
for  our  poor  relations  in  preference  to  others  who  may 
be  equally  necessitous,  which  is,  that  if  we  do  not, 
no  one  else  will;  mankind,  by  an  established  consent, 
leaving  the  reduced  branches  of.  good  families  to  the 
bounty  of  their  wealthy  alliances. 

The  not  making  a  will  is  a  very  culpable  omission, 
where  it  is  attended  with  the  following  effects;  Where 
it  leaves  daughters,  or  younger  children,  at  the  mercy 
of  the  oldest  son;  where  it  distributes  a  personal 
fortune  equally  amongst  the  children,  although  there 
be  no  equality  in  their  exigencies  or  situation;  where 
it  leaves  an  opening  for  litigation;  or  lastly,  and 
principally,  where  it  defrauds  creditors;  for,  by  a 
defect  in  our  laws,  which  has  been  long  and  strangely 
overlooked,  real  estates  are  not  subject  to  the  payment 
of  debts  by  simple  contract,  unless  made  so  by  will 
although  credit  is,  in  fact,  generally  given  to  the  pos- 
session of  such  estates:  he  therefore,  who  neglects  to 
make  the  necessary  appointments  for  the  payment  of 
his  debts,  as  far  as  his  effects  extend,  sins,  as  it  has 
been  justly  said,  in  his  grave;  and  if  he  omits  this  on 
purpose  to  defeat  the  demands  of  his  creditors,  he 
dies  with  a  deliberate  fraud  in  his  heart. 

Anciently,  when  any  one  died  without  a  will,  the 
bishop  of  the  diocess  took  possession  of  his  personal 
fortune,  in  order  to  dispose  of  it  for  the  benefit  of  his 
soul,  that  is,  to  pious  or  charitable  uses.  It  became 
necessary,  therefore,  that  the  bishop  should  be  satisfi- 
ed of  the  authenticity  of  the  will,  when  there  was  any, 
before  he  resigned  the  right  which  he  had  to  take 
possession  of  the  dead  man's  fortune  in  case  of  intes- 
tacy. In  this  way,  wills,  and  controversies  relating 
to  wills,  came  within  the  cognizance  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical courts;  under  the  jurisdiction  of  which,  wills  of 
personals  (the  only  wills  that  were  made  formerly) 
Btill  continue,  though  in  truth  no  more  nowaday 


WILLS.  147 

connected  with  religion,  than  any  other  instruments  of 
conveyance.  This  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  English  law. 
Succession  to  intestates  must  be  regulated  by  posi- 
tive rules  of  law,  there  being  no  principle  of  natural 
justice  whereby  to  ascertain  the  proportion  of  the  dif- 
ferent claimants ;  not  to  mention  that  the  claim  itself, 
especially  of  collateral  kindred,  seems  to  have  little 
foundation  in  the  law  of  nature. 

These  regulations  should  be  guided  by  the  duty 
and  presumed  inclination  of  the  deceased,  so  far  as 
these  considerations  can  be  consulted  by  general  rules. 
The  statutes  of  Charles  the  Second,  commonly  called 
the  Statutes  of  Distribution,  which  adopt  the  rule  of 
the  Roman  law  in  the  distribution  of  personals,  are 
sufficiently  equitable.  They  assign  one-third  to  the 
widow,  and  two-thirds  to  the  children;  in  case  of  no 
children,  one-half  to  the  widow,  and  the  other  half  to 
the  next  of  kin;  where  neither  widow  nor  lineal  de- 
scendants survive,  the  whole  to  the  next  of  kin,  and 
to  be  equally  divided  amongst  kindred  of  equal  degree, 
without  distinction  of  whole  blood  and  half  blood,  or 
of  consanguinity  by  the  father's  or  mother's  side.  The 
descent  of  real  estates,  of  houses,  that  is,  and  land, 
having  been  settled  in  more  remote  and  in  ruder 
times,  is  less  reasonable.  There  never  can  be  much 
to  complain  of  in  a  rule  which  every  person  may  avoid, 
by  so  easy  a  provision  as  that  of  making  his  will:  oth- 
erwise our  law  in  this  respect  is  chargeable  with  some 
flagrant  absurdities;  such  as,  that  an  estate  shall  in 
no  wise  go  to jthe  brother  or  sister  of  the  half  blood, 
though  it  came  to  the  deceased  from  the  common 
parent;  that  it  shall  go  to  the  remotest  relation  the 
intestate  has  in  the  world,  rather  than  to  his  own 
father  or  mother;  or  even  be  forfeited  for  want  of  an 
heir,  though  both  parents  survive ;  that  the  most  dis- 
tant paternal  relation  shall  be  preferred  to  an  uncle, 
}r  own  cousin,  by  the  mother's  side,  notwithstanding 
he  estate  was  purchased  and  acquired  by  the  intes- 
ite  himself. 

Land  not  being  so  divisible  as  money,  may  be  a 
fcason  for  making  a  difference  in  the  course  of  inhe- 
r.ance;  but  there  ought  to  be  no  difference  but  what  is 
funded  upon  that  reason.  The  Roman  law  made  none. 


BOOK  III. 

PART   II. 

OP   RELATIVE    DUTIES    WHICH   ARE    INDETERMINATE, 


CHAPTER  I. 

CHARITY. 

I  USE  the  term  Charity  neither  in  the  common  sense 
of  bounty  to  the  poor,  nor  in  St.  Paul's  sense  of  be- 
nevolence to  all  mankind;  but  I  apply  it,  at  present, 
in  a  sense  more  commodious  to  my  purpose,  to  signify 
the  promoting  the  happiness  of  our  inferiors. 

Charity,  in  this  sense,  I  take  to  be  the  principal 
province  of  virtue  and  religion;  for,  whilst  worldly 
prudence  will  direct  our  behaviour  towards  our  supe- 
riors and  politeness  towards  our  equals,  there  is  little 
beside  the  consideration  of  duty,  or  an  habitual  hu- 
•  manity  which  comes  into  the  place  of  consideration, 
to  produce  a  proper  conduct  towards  those  who  are 
beneath  us,  and  dependent  upon  us. 

There  are  three  principal  methods  of  promoting  the 
happiness  of  our  inferiors: — 

1.  By  the  treatment  of  our  domestics  and  depen- 
dants. 

2.  By  professional  assistance 

3.  By  pecuniary  bounty. 


TREATMENT    OF    OUR    DOMESTICS.  149 

CHAPTER  II. 

CHARITY. 

THE    TREATMENT    OF    OUR  DOMESTICS    AND 
DEPENDANTS. 

A  PARTY  of  friends  setting  out  together  upon  a 
journey  soon  find  it  to  be  the  best  for  all  sides,  that, 
while  they  are  upon  the  road,  one  of  the  company 
should  wait  upon  the  rest;  another  ride  forward  to 
seek  out  lodging  and  entertainment;  a  third  carry  the 
portmanteau;  a  fourth  take  charge  of  the  horses;  a 
fifth  bear  the  purse,  conduct  and  direct  the  route;  not 
forgetting,  however,  that  as  they  were  equal  and  in- 
dependent when  they  set  out,  so  they  are  all  to  return 
to  a  level  again  at  their  journey's  end.  The  same 
regard  and  respect;  the  same  forbearance,  lenity,  and 
reserve  in  using  their  service;  the  same  mildness  in 
delivering  commands;  the  same  study  to  make  their 
journey  comfortable  and  pleasant,  which  he  whose  lot 
it  was  to  direct  the  rest,  would  in  common  decency 
think  himself  bound  to  observe  towards  them;  ought 
we  to  show  to  those  who,  in  the  casting  of  the  parts 
of  human  society,  happen  to  be  placed  within  our 
power,  or  to  depend  upon  us. 

Another  reflection  of  a  like  tendency  with  the  for- 
mer is,  that  our  obligation  to  them  is  much  greater 
than  theirs  to  us.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  that  the 
rich  man  maintains  his  servants,  tradesmen,  tenants, 
and  labourers  :  the  truth  is,  they  maintain  him.  It  is 
their  industry  which  supplies  his  table,  furnishes  his 
wardrobe,  builds  his  houses,  adorns  his  equipage,  pro- 
vides his  amusements.  It  is  not  the  estate,  but  the 
labour  employed  upon  it,  that  pays  his  rent.  All  that 
he  does  is  to  distribute  what  others  produce;  which 
is  the  least  part  of  the  business. 

Nor  do  I  perceive  any  foundation  for  an  opinion, 
which  is  often  handed  round  in  genteel  company,  that 
good  usage  is  thrown  away  upon  low  and  ordinary 
minds;  that  they  are  insensible  of  kindness,  and  in- 

VOL.  X.  13  * 


150  SLAVERY. 

capable  of  gratitude.  If  by  "  low  and  ordinary  minds*' 
aie  meant  the  minds  of  men  in  low  and  ordinary  sta- 
tions, they  seem  to  be  affected  by  benefits  in  the  same 
way  that  all  others  are,  and  to  be  no  less  ready  to 
requite  them:  and  it  would  be  a  very  unaccountable 
law  of  nature  if  it  were  otherwise. 

Whatever  uneasiness  we  occasion  to  our  domestics, 
which  neither  promotes  our  service  nor  answers  the 
just  ends  of  punishment,  is  manifestly  wrong;  were 
it  only  upon  the  general  principle  of  diminishing  the 
«um  of  human  happiness. 

By  which  rule  we  are  forbidden, — 

1.  To    enjoin   unnecessary  labour   or  confinement 
from  the  mere  love  and  wantonness  of  domination: 

2.  To  insult  our  servants  by  harsh,  scornful,  or  op- 
probrious language; 

3.  To  refuse  them  any  harmless  pleasures; 

And,  by  the  same  principle,  are  also  forbidden 
causeless  or  immoderate  anger,  habitual  peevishness, 
and  groundless  suspicion. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SLAVERY. 

THE  prohibitions  of  the  last  chapter  extend  to  the 
treatment  of  slaves,  being  founded  upon  a  principle 
independent  of  the  contract  between  masters  and 
servants. 

I  define  slavery  to  be  "  an  obligation  to  labour  for 
the  benefit  of  the  master,  without  the  contract  or  con- 
sent of  the  servant." 

This  obligation  may  arise,  consistently  with  the  law 
of  nature,  from  three  causes: 

1.  From  crimes. 

2.  From  captivity. 

3.  From  debt. 

In  the  first  case,  the  continuance  of  the  slavery,  as 
of  any  other  punishment,  ought  to  be  proportioned  to 


SLAVERY.  151 

the  crime;  in  the  second  and  third  cases,  it  ought  to 
cease,  as  soon  as  the  demand  of  the  injured  nation, 
or  private  creditor,  is  satisfied. 

The  slave-trade  upon  the  coast  of  Africa  is  not 
excused  by  these  principles.  When  slaves  in  that 
country  are  brought  to  market,  no  questions.  I  believe, 
are  asked  about  the  origin  or  justice  of  the  vender's 
title.  It  may  be  presumed,  therefore,  that  this  title 
is  not  always,  if  it  be  ever,  founded  in  any  of  the 
causes  above  assigned. 

But  defect  of  right  in  the  first  purchase  is  the  least 
crime  with  which  this  traffic  is  chargeable.  The  na- 
tives are  excited  to  war  and  mutual  depredation,  for 
the  sake  of  supplying  their  contracts,  or  furnishing 
their  market  with  slaves.  With  this  the  wickedness 
begins.  The  slaves,  torn  away  from  parents,  wives, 
children,  from  they:  friends  and  companions,  their 
fields  and  flocks,  rheir  home  an-d  country,  are  trans- 
ported to  the  European  settlements  in  America,  with 
no  other  accommodation  on  shipboard  than  what  is 
provided  for  brutes.  This  is  the  second  stage  of 
cruelty;  from  which  the  miserable  exiles  are  deli- 
vered, only  to  be  placed,  and  that  for  life,  in  subjec-. 
tion  to  a  dominion  and  system  of  laws,  the  most  mer- 
ciless and  tyrannical  that  ever  were  tolerated  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth;  and  from  all  that  can  be  learned 
by  the  accounts  of  the  people  upon  the  spot,  the  inor- 
dinate authority  which  the  plantation  laws  confer 
upon  the  slave  holder  is  exercised,  by  the  English 
slave  holder  especially,  with  rigour  and  brutality. 

But  necessity  is  pretended;  the  name  under  which 
every  enormity  is  attempted  to  be  justified.  And, 
after  all,  what  is  the  necessity?  It  has  never  been 
proved  that  the  land  could  not  be  cultivated  there, 
as  it  is  here,  by  hired  servants.  It  is  said  that  it  could 
not  be  cultivated  with  quite  the  same  conveniency 
and  cheapness,  as  by  the  labour  of  slaves;  by  which 
means  a  pound  of  sugar,  which  the  planter  now  sells 
for  sixpence,  could  not  be  afforded  under  sixpence- 
halfpenny; — and  this  is  the  necessity  ! 

The  great  revolution  which  has  taken  place  in  the 
Western  World  may  probably  conduce  (and  who 


152  SLAVERY. 

knows  but  that  it  was  designed?)  to  accelerate  the 
fall  of  this  abominable  tyranny;  and  now  that  this 
contest,  and  the  passions  which  attend  it  are  no  more , 
there  may  succeed  perhaps  a  season  for  reflecting, 
whether  a  legislature  which  had  so  long  lent  its  as- 
sistance to  the  support  of  an  institution  replete  with 
human  misery,  was  fit  to  be  trusted  with  an  empire 
the  most  extensive  that  ever  obtained  in  any  age  or 
quarter  of  the  world. 

Slavery  was  a  part  of  the  civil  constitution  of  most 
countries  when  Christianity  appeared;  yet  no  passage 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  by  which  it 
is  condemned  or  prohibited.  This  is  true;  for  Chris- 
tianity, soliciting  admission  into  all  nations  of  the 
world,  abstained,  as  it  behoved  it,  from  intermeddling 
with  the  civil  institutions  of  any.  But  does  it  follow, 
from  the  silence  of  Scripture  concerning  them,  that 
all  the  civil  institutions  which  then  prevailed  were 
right  ?  or  that  the  bad  should  not  be  exchanged  for 
better  ? 

Besides  this,  the  discharging  of  slaves  from  all  obli- 
gation to  obey  their  masters,  which  is  the  consequence 
of  pronouncing  slavery  to  be  unlawful,  would  have 
had  no  better  effect,  than  to  let  loose  one  half  of  man- 
kind upon  the  other.  Slaves  would  have  been  tempted 
to  embrace  a  religion  which  asserted  their  right  to 
freedom;  masters  would  hardly  have  been  persuaded 
to  consent  to  claims  founded  upon  such  authority; 
the  most  calamitous  of  all  contests,  a  bellum  servile, 
might  probably  have  ensued,  to  the  reproach,  if  not 
the  extinction,  of  the  Christian  name. 

The  truth  is,  the  emancipation  of  slaves  should  be 
gradual,  and  be  carried  on  by  provisions  of  law,  and 
under  the  protection  of  civil  government.  Christiani- 
ty can  only  operate  as  an  alterative.  By  the  mild 
diffusion  of  its  light  and  influence,  the  minds  of  men 
are  insensibly  prepared  to  perceive  and  correct  the 
enormities,  which  folly,  or  wickedness,  or  accident, 
have  introduced  into  their  public  establishments.  In 
this  way  the  Greek  and  Roman  slavery,  and  since 
these  the  feudal  tyranny,  has  declined  before  it.  And 


PROFESSIONAL,    ASSITANCE.  153 

we  trust  that,  as  the  knowledge  and  authority  of  the 
same  religion  advance  in  the  world,  they  will  banish 
what  remains  of  this  odious  institution. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


PROFESSIONAL.  ASSISTANCE. 

THIS  kind  of  beneficence  is  chiefly  to  be  expected 
from  members  of  the  legislature,  magistrates,  medical, 
legal,  and  sacerdotal  professions. 

1.  The    care  of  the  poor  ought  to  be  the  principal 
object  of  all  laws;  for  this  plain  reason,  that  the  rich 
are  able  to  take  care  of  themselves. 

Much  has  been,  and  more  might,  be  done  by  the 
laws  of  this  country,  towards  the  relief  of  the  impo- 
tent, and  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  the  in- 
dustrious poor.  Whoever  applies  himself  to  collect 
observations  upon  the  state  and  operation  of  the  poor 
laws,  and  to  contrive  remedies  for  the  imperfections 
and  abuses  which  he  observes,  and  digests  these  reme- 
dies into  acts  of  parliament;  and  conducts  them,  by 
argument  or  influence,  through  the  two  branches  of 
the  legislature,  or  communicates  his  ideas  to  those 
who  are  more  likely  to  carry  them  into  effect;  deserves 
well  of  a  class  of  the  community  so  numerous,  that 
their  happiness  forms  a  principal  part  of  the  whole. 
The  study  and  activity  thus  employed  is  charity,  in 
the  most  meritorious  sense  of  the  word. 

2.  The  application  of  parochial  relief  is  intrusted, 
in  the  first  instance,  to  overseers  and  contractors,  who 
have  an  interest  in  opposition  to  that  of  the  poor,  in- 
asmuch  as  whatever  they  allow  them  comes  in  part 
out   of  their  own  pocket.     For  this  reason,  the  law 
has  deposited  with  justices  of  the  peace  a  power  of 
superintendence   and  control:  and  the  judicious  inter- 
position of  this  power  is  a  most  useful  exertion  of  cha- 
lity,  and  ofttimes  within  the  abilty  of  those  who  have 


154  PROFESSIONAL   ASSISTANCE. 

no  other  way  of  serving  their  generation.  A  country 
gentleman  of  very  moderate  education,  and  who  has 
little  to  spare  from  his  fortune,  by  learning  so  much 
of  the  poor  law  as  is  to  be  found  in  Dr.  Burn's  Jus- 
tice, and  by  furnishing  himself  with  a  knowledge  of 
the  prices  of  labour  and  provision,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  estimate  the  exigencies  of  a  family,  and  wnat  is  to 
be  expected  from  their  industry,  may,  in  this  way, 
place  out  the  one  talent  committed  to  him  to  great 
account. 

3.  Of  all  private  professions,  that  of  medicine  puts 
it  in  a  man's   power  to  do  the  most  good  at  the  least 
expense.     Health,  which  is  precious  to  all,  is  to  the 
poor  invaluable;  and  their  complaints,  as  agues,  rheu- 
matisms,   &c.    are   often   such   as  yield  to  medicine. 
And,   with  respect  to  the  expense,  drugs  at  first  hand 
cost   little,   and  advice  costs  nothing,  where  it  is  only 
bestowed   upon   those    who  could  not  afford  to  pay 
."or  it. 

4.  The   rights  of  the  poor  are  not  so  important  or 
intricate   as  their  contentions  are  violent  and  ruinous. 
A   lawyer  or   attorney,  of  tolerable  knowledge  in  his 
pofession,   has  commonly  judgment  enough  to  adjust 
these  disputes,  with  all  the  effect,  and  without  the  ex- 
pense of  a  lawsuit;  and  he  may  be  said  to  give  a  poor 
man  twenty  pounds  who  prevents  his  throwing  it  away 
upon  law.     A  legal  man,  whether  of  the  profession 
or  not,  who,   together  with  a  spirit   of  conciliation, 
possesses  the  confidence  of  his  neighbourhood,  will  be 
much  resorted  to  for  this  purpose,  especially  since  the 
grc-Jit  increase  of  costs  has  produced  a  general  dread 
of  going  to  law. 

Nor  is  this  line  of  beneficence  confined  to  arbitra- 
tion. Seasonable  counsel,  coming  with  the  weight 
which  the  reputation  of  the  adviser  gives  it,  will  often 
keep  or  extricate  the  rash  and  uninformed  out  of  great 
difficulties. 

Lastly,  I  know  not  a  more  exalted  charity  than  thai 
which  presents  a  shield  against  the  rapacity  or  perse- 
cution of  a  tyrant. 

%.  Betwixt  argument  and  authority  (I  mean  that 
luthority  which  flows  from  voluntary  respect,  and  at- 


PECUNIARY    BOUNTY.  155 

tends  upon  sanctity  and  disinterestedness  of  charac- 
ter,) something  may  be  done,  amongst  the  lower  orders 
of  mankind,  towards  the  regulation  of  their  conduct, 
and  the  satisfaction  of  their  thoughts.  This  office 
i*elongs  to  the  ministers  of  religion;  or  rather,  who- 
ever undertakes  it,  becomes  a  minister  of  religion. 
The  inferior  clergy,  who  are  nearly  upon  a  level  with 
the  common  sort  of  their  parishioners,  and  who  on 
that  account  gain  an  easier  admission  to  their  society 
and  confidence,  have  in  this  respect  more  in  their 
power  than  their  .superiors:  the  discreet  use  of  this 
power  constitutes  one  of  the  most  respectable  func- 
tions of  human  nature. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CHARITY. 
PECUNIARY    BOUNTY. 


1.  The  obligation  to  bestow  relief  upon  the  poor 

2.  The  manner  of  bestowing  it. 

3.  The  pretences  by  which  men  excuse  themselves 

from  it. 


1.   The  obligation  to  bestow  relief  upon  the  poor. 

THEY  who  rank  pity  amongst  the  original  impulses 
of  our  nature,  rightly  contend,  that  when  this  princi- 
ple prompts  us  to  the  relief  of  human  misery,  it  indi- 
cates the  Divine  intention,  and  our  duty.  Indeed, 
the  same  conclusion  is  deducible  from  the  existence 
of  the  passion,  whatever  account  be  given  of  its  ori- 
gin. Whether  it  be  an  instinct  or  a  habit,  it  is  in 
fact  a  property  of  our  nature,  which  God  appointed; 
and  the  final  cause  for  which  it  was  appointed  is  to 
afford  to  the  miserable,  in  the  compassion  of  their  fel- 
low creatures,  a  remedy  for  those  inequalities  and  dis- 
tresses which  God  foresaw  that  many  must  be  ex- 
posed to,  under  every  general  rule  for  the  distribution 
of  property. 


156  PECUNIARY   BOUNTY. 

Beside  this,  the  poor  have  a  claim  founded  in  the 
law  of  nature,  which  may  be  thus  explained: — All 
things  were  originally  common.  No  one  being  able 
to  produce  a  charter  from  Heaven,  had  any  better 
title  to  a  particular  possession  than  his  next  neigh- 
bour. There  were  reasons  for  mankind's  agreeing 
upon  a  separation  of  this  common  fund;  and  God  for 
these  reasons  is  presumed  to  have  ratified  it.  But 
this  separation  was  made  and  consented  to,  upon  the 
expectation  and  condition  that  every  one  should  have 
left  a  sufficiency  for  his  subsistence,  or  the  means  of 
procuring  it ;  and  as  no  fixed  laws  for  the  regulation 
of  property  can  be  so  contrived  as  to  provide  for  the 
relief  of  every  case  and  distress  which  may  arise,  these 
cases  and  distresses,  when  their  right  and  share  in 
the  common  stock  were  given  up  or  taken  from  them, 
were  supposed  to  be  left  to  the  voluntary  bounty  of 
those  who  might  be  acquainted  with  the  exigencies 
of  their  situation,  and  in  the  way  of  affording  assist- 
ance. And,  therefore,  when  the  partition  of  property 
is  rigidly  maintained  against  the  claims  of  indigence 
and  distress,  it  is  maintained  in  opposition  to  the  in- 
tention of  those  who  made  it,  and  to  His,  who  is  the 
Supreme  Propietor  of  every  thing,  and  who  has  filled 
the  world  with  plenteousness,  for  the  sustentation  and 
comfort  of  all  whom  he  sends  into  it. 

The  Christian  Scriptures  are  more  copious  and  ex- 
plicit upon  this  duty  than  upon  almost  any  other. 
The  description  which  Christ  hath  left  us  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  last  day  establishes  the  obligation  of 
bounty  beyond  controversy: — "  When  the  Son  of  Man 
shall  come  in  his  glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels  with 
him,  then  shall  he  sit  upon  the  throne  of  his  glory, 
and  before  him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations:  And  he 
shall  separate  them  one  from  another. — Then  shall 
the  King  say  unto  them  on  his  right  hand,  Come,  ye 
blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared 
for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world:  For  I  was 
an  hungered,  and  ye  gave  me  meat:  I  was  thirsty, 
and  ye  gave  me  drink:  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took 
me  in:  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me:  I  was  sick,  and 
ye  visited  me:  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me. — 


PECUNIARY  BOUNTY.  157 

And  inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  to  one  of  the  least 
of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me."*  It 
is  not  necessary  to  understand  this  passage  as  a  lite- 
ral account  of  what  will  actually  pass  on  that  day. 
Supposing  it  only  a  scenical  description  of  the  rules 
and  principles  by  which  the  Supreme  Arbiter  of  our 
destiny  will  regulate  his  decisions,  it  conveys  the  same 
lesson  to  us;  it  equally  demonstrates  of  how  great 
value  and  importance  these  duties  in  the  sight  of  God 
are,  and  what  stress  will  be  laid  upon  them.  The 
apostles  also  describe  this  virtue  as  propitiating  the 
Divine  favour  in  an  eminent  degree.  And  these  re- 
commendations have  produced  their  effect.  It  does 
not  appear  that,  before  the  times  of  Christianity,  an 
infirmary,  hospital,  or  public  charity  of  any  kind,  ex- 
isted in  the  world;  whereas  most  countries  in  Chris- 
tendom have  long  abounded  with  these  institutions. 
To  which  may  be  added,  that  a  spirit  of  private  libe- 
rality seems  to  flourish  amidst  the  decay  of  many 
other  virtues;  not  to  mention  the  legal  provision  for 
the  poor,  which  obtains  in  this  country,  and  which 
was  unknown  and  unthought  of  by  the  most  human- 
ized nations  of  antiquity. 

St.  Paul  adds  upon  the  subject  an  excellent  direc- 
tion, and  which  is  practicable  by  all  who  have  any 
thing  to  give: — "  Upon  the  first  day  of  the  week  (or 
any  other  stated  time,)  let  every  one  of  you  lay  by  in 
store,  as  God  hath  prospered  him."  By  which  I  un- 
derstand St.  Paul  to  recommend  what  is  the  very  thing 
wanting  with  most  men,  the  being  charitable  upon  a 
plan  ;  that  is,  upon  a  deliberate  comparison  of  our 
fortunes  with  the  reasonable  expenses  and  expecta- 
tions of  our  families,  to  compute  what  we  can  spare, 
and  to  lay  by  so  much  for  charitable  purposes  in  some 
mode  or  other.  The  mode  will  be  a  consideration  af- 
terwards. 

The  effect  which  Christianity  produced  upon  some 
of  its  first  converts  was  such  as  might  be  looked  for 
from  a  divine  religion,  coming  with  full  force  and  mi- 


*  Matthew  xxv   31. 

14 


158  PECUNIARY  BOUNTY 

raculous  evidence  upon  the  consciences  of  mankind. 
It  overwhelmed  all  wordly  considerations  in  the  ex- 
pectations of  a  more  important  existence: — "  And  the 
multitude  of  them  that  believed  were  of  one  heart  and 
of  one  soul;  neither  said  any  of  them  that  aught  of 
the  things  which  he  possessed  was  his  own;  but  they 
had  all  things  in  common. — Neither  was  there  any 
among  them  that  lacked;  for  as  many  as  were  pos- 
sessors of  lands  or  houses,  sold  them,  and  brought  the 
prices  of  the  things  that  were  sold,  and  laid  them 
down  at  the  apostle 's  feet ;  and  distribution  was  made  un- 
to every  man  according  as  he  had  need."  Acts,  iv.  32. 

Nevertheless,  this  community  of  goods,  however  it 
manifested  the  sincere  zeal  of  the  primitive  Chistians, 
is  no  precedent  for  our  imitation.  It  was  confined  to 
the  Church  at  Jerusalem;  continued  not  long  there; 
was  never  enjoined  upon  any,  (Acts,  v.  4.;)  and,  al- 
though it  might  suit  with  the  particular  circumstances 
of  a  small  and  select  society,  is  altogether  impractica- 
ble in  a  large  and  mixed  community. 

The  conduct  of  the  apostles  upon  the  occasion  de- 
serves to  be  noticed.  Their  followers  laid  down  their 
fortunes  at  their  feet ;  but  so  far  were  they  from  tak- 
ing advantage  of  this  unlimited  confidence,  to  enrich 
themselves,  or  to  establish  their  own  authority,  that 
they  soon  after  got  rid  of  this  business,  as  inconsistent 
with  the  main  object  of  their  mission,  and  transferred 
the  custody  and  management  of  the  public  fund  to 
deacons  elected  to  that  office  by  the  people  at  large. 
Acts,  vi. 

2.  The  manner  of  bestowing  bounty;  or  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  charity. 

Every  question  between  the  different  kinds  of  chari- 
ty supposes  the  sum  bestowed  to  be  the  same. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  charity  which  prefer  a 
claim  to  attention. 

The  first,  and  in  my  judgment  one  of  the  best,  is 
to  give  stated  and  considerable  sums,  by  way  of  pen- 
sion or  annuity,  to  individuals  or  families,  with  whose 
behaviour  and  distress  we  ourselves  arc  acquainted. 
When  I  speak  of  considerable  sums,  I  mean  only  that 
five  pounds,  or  any  other  sum,  given  at  once  or  di- 


PECUNIARY  BOUNTY.  159 

vided  amongst  five  or  fewer  families,  will  do  more 
good  than  the  same  sum  distributed  amongst  a  greater 
number  in  shillings  or  half-crowns;  and  that,  because 
it  is  more  likely  to  be  properly  applied  by  the  persons 
who  receive  it.  A  poor  fellow,  who  can  find  no  bet- 
ter use  for  a  shilling  than  to  drink  his  benefactor's 
health,  and  purchase  half  an  hour's  recreation  for  him- 
self, would  hardly  break  into  a  guinea  for  any  such 
purpose,  or  be  so  improvident  as  not  to  lay  it  by  for 
an  occasion  of  importance,  e.  g.  for  his  rent,  his  cloth- 
ing, fuel,  or  stock  of  winter's  provision.  It  is  a  still 
greater  recommendation  of  this  kind  of  charity,  that 
pensions  and  annuities,  which  are  paid  regularly,  and 
can  be  expected  at  the  time,  are  the  only  way  by 
which  we  can  prevent  one  part  of  a  poor  man's  suffer- 
ings— the  dread  of  want. 

2.  But  as  this  kind  of  charity  supposes  that  pro- 
per objects  of  such  expensive  benefactions  fall  within 
our  private  knowledge  and  observation,  which  does 
not  happen  to  all,  a  second  method  of  doing  good, 
which  is  in  every  one's  power  who  has  the  money  to 
spare,  is  by  subscription  to  public  charities.     Public 
charities  admit  of  this  argument  in  their  favour,  that 
your  money  goes  farther  towards  attaining  the  end 
for  which  it  is  given,  than  it  can  do  by  any  private 
and    separate    beneficence.     A  guinea,  for  example, 
contributed  to  an  infirmary,  becomes  the  means  of 
providing  one  patient  at  least  with  a  physician,  sur- 
geon, apothecary,  with  medicine,  diet,  lodging,  and 
suitable  attendence;  which  is   not  the  tenth  part  of 
what  the  same  assistance,  if  it  could  be  procured  at 
all,  would  cost  to  a  sick  person  or  family  in  any  other 
situation. 

3.  The  last,  and,  compared  with  the  former,  the  low- 
est exertion  of  benevolence  is  in  the  relief  of  beggars. 
Nevertheless,  I  by  no  means  approve  the  indiscrimi- 
nate rejection  of  all  who  implore  our  alms  in  this  way. 
Some  may  perish  by  such  a  conduct.     Men  are  some- 
times overtaken  by  distress,  for  which  all  other  relief 
would  come  too  late.     Beside  which,  resolutions  of 
this  kind  compel  us  to  offer  such  violence  to  our  hu- 
manity, as  may  go  near,  in  a  little  while,  to  suffocate 


160  PECUNIARY  BOUNTY. 

the  principle  itself;  which  is  a  very  serious  consida 
ration.  A  good  man,  if  he  do  not  surrender  himself 
to  his  feelings  without  reserve,  will  at  least  lend  an 
ear  to  importunities  which  come  accompanied  with 
outward  attestations  of  distress;  and  after  a  patient 
audience  of  the  complaint,  will  direct  himself,  not  so 
much  by  any  previous  resolution  which  he  may  have 
formed  upon  the  subject,  as  by  the  circumstances  and 
credulity  of  the  account  that  he  receives. 

There  are  other  species  of  charity  well  contrived 
to  make  the  money  expended  go  far ;  such  as  keep — 
ing  down  the  price  of  fuel  or  provision,  in  case  of  mo- 
nopoly or  temporary  scarcity,  by  purchasing  the  arti- 
cles at  the  best  market,  and  retailing  them  at  prime 
cost,  or  at  a  small  loss;  or  the  adding  of  a  bounty  to 
particular  species  of  labour,  when  the  price  is  acci- 
dentally depressed. 

The  proprietors  of  large  estates  have  it  in  theii 
power  to  facilitate  the  maintenance,  and  thereby  to 
encourage  the  establishment  of  families  (which  i,s 
one  of  the  noblest  purposes  to  which  the  rich  amrf 
great  can  convert  their  endeavours,)  by  building  cot- 
tages, splitting  farms,  erecting  manufactories,  culti 
vating  wastes,  embanking  the  sea,  draining  marshes, 
and  other  expedients,  which  the  situation  of  each 
estate  points  out.  If  the  profits  of  these  undertak- 
ings do  not  repay  the  expense,  let  the  authors  of 
them  place  the  difference  to  the  account  of  charity. 
It  is  true  of  almost  all  such  projects,  that  the  public 
is  a  gainer  by  them,  what  ever  the  owner  be.  And 
where  the  loss  can  be  spared,  this  consideration  is 
sufficient. 

It  is  become  a  question  of  some  importance,  under 
what  circumstances  works  of  charity  ought  to  be  done 
in  private,  and  when  they  may  be  made  public  with- 
out detracting  from  the  merit  of  the  action,  if  indeed 
they  ever  may;  the  Author  of  our  religion  having  de- 
livered a  rule  upon  this  subject  which  seems  1o  enjoin 
universal  secrecy: — "  When  th»u  doest  alms,  let  not 
thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand  doeth;  that 
thy  alms  may  be  in  secret,  and  thy  Father,  which 
eeeth  in  secret,  himself  shall  reward  thee  openly." 


PECUNIARY    BOUNTY.  1G1 

(Matt.  vi.  3,  4.)  From  the  preamble  to  this  prohibi- 
tion I  think  it,  however,  plain  that  our  Saviour's  sole 
design  was  to  forbid  ostentation,  arid  all  publishing 
of  good  works  which  proceeds  from  thai  motive: — 
"  Take  heed  that  ye  do  not  your  alms  before  men,  to 
be  seen  of  them ;  otherwise  ye  have  no  reward  of  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven:  therefore,  when  thou 
doest  thine  alms,  do  not  sound  a  trumpet  before  thee, 
as  the  hypocrites  do  in  the  synagogues  and  in  the 
streets,  that  they  may  have  glory  of  men.  Verily  I 
say  unto  you,  they  have  their  reward." — Ver.  1,  2. 
There  are  motives  for  the  doing  our  alms  in  public, 
beside  those  of  ostentation,  with  which  therefore  our 
Saviour's  rule  has  no  concern:  such  as,  to  testify  our 
approbation  of  some  particular  species  of  charity,  and 
to  recommend  it  to  others;  to  take  off  the  prejudice 
which  the  want,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  the  sup- 
pression, of  our  name  in  the  list  of  contributors  might 
excite  against  the  charity,  or  against  ourselves.  And, 
BO  long  as  these  motives  are  free  from  any  mixture  of 
vanity,  they  are  in  no  danger  of  invading  our  Saviour's 
prohibition;  they  rather  seem  to  comply  with  another 
direction  which  he  has  left  us:  "  Let  your  light  so 
shine  before  men,  that  they  may  see  your  good  works., 
and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  If  it 
be  necessary  to  propose  a  precise  distinction  upon  the 
subject,  I  can  think  of  none  better  than  fhe  following: 
When  our  bounty  is  beyond  our  fortune  and  station, 
that  is,  when  it  is  more  than  could  be  expected  from 
us,  our  charity  should  be  private,  if  privacy  be  prac- 
ticable: when  it  is  not  more  than  might  be  expected, 
it  may  be  public;  for  we  cannot  hope  to  influence 
others  to  the  imitation  of  extraordinary  generosity, 
and  therefore  \vant,  in  the  former  case,  the  only  justi- 
fiable reason  for  making  it  public. 

Having  thus  described  several  different  exertions 
of  charity,  it  may  not  be  improper  to  take  notice  of  a 
species  of  liberality,  which  is  not  charity,  in  any  sense 
of  the  word:  I  mean  the  giving  of  entertainments  or 
liquor,  for  the  sake  of  popularity;  or  the  rewarding, 
treating,  and  maintaining  the  companions  of  our 
diversions,  as  hunters,  shooters  fishers,  and  the  like, 

VOL.  I.  14* 


162  PECUNIAR?     BOUNTY. 

I  do  not  say  thaf  this  is  criminal;  I  only  say  that  it 
is  not  charity;  and  that  we  are  not  to  suppose,  be- 
cause we  give,  and  give  to  the  poor,  that  it  will  stand 
in  the  place,  or  supersede  the  obligation  of  more  me- 
ritorious and  disinterested  bounty. 

3.   The  pretences  by  which  men  excuse  themselves 
from  giving  to  the  poor. 

1.  "  That  they  have  nothing  to  spare,"  i.  e.  nothing 
for  which   they  have  not   provided  some  other  use; 
nothing  which  their  plan  of  expense,  together  with 
the  savings  they  have  resolved  to  lay  by,  will  not  ex- 
haust: never  reflecting  whether  it  be  in  their  power y 
or  that  it  is  their  duly  to  retrench  their  expenses,  and 
contract   their  plan,  "  that   they  may  have  to  give  to 
them   that   need:"  or  rather,  that  this  ought  to  havn 
been  part  of  their  plan  originally. 

2.  "  That  they  have  families  of  their  own,  and  that 
charity  begins  at  home."    The  extent  of  this  plea  will 
be  considered,  when  we  come  to  explain  the  duty  oJ 
parents. 

3.  "  That  charity  does  not  consist  in  giving  money 
but  in  benevolence,  philanthropy,  love  to  all  mankind 
goodness  of  heart,"  &c.     Hear  St.  James:  "  If  a  bro 
ther  or  sister  be  naked,  and  destitute  of  daily  food 
and  one  of  you  say  unto  them,  Depart  in  peace;  be 
ye  warmed   and  filled;  notwithstanding  ye  give  them 
not  those  things  which  are  needful  to  the  body ;  what 
doth  it  profit  ?"   (James,  ii.  15,  16.) 

4.  "  That   giving  to  the  poor  is  not  mentioned  in 
St.   Paul's  description   of  charity,  in  the   thirteenth 
chapter  of  his  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians."     This 
is  not  a  description  of  charity,  but  of  good  nature;  and 
it  is  not   neccessary   that  every  duty  be  mentioned  in 
every  place. 

5.  "  That  they  pay   the   poor  rates."     They  might 
as  well  allege  that  they  pay  their  debts:  for  the  poor 
have  the  same  right  to  that  portion  of  a  man's  property 
which   the  laws  assign  to  them,  that  the  man  himself 
has  to  the  remainder. 

6.  "  That  they  employ  many  poor  persons  !" — for 
their  own  sake,  not  the  poor's; — otherwise  it  is  a  good 
plea. 


PECUNIARY    BOUNTY.  163 

7.  "  That  the   poor  do  not  suffer  so  much  as  we 
imagine;    that  education  and  habit  have  reconciled 
them  to  the  evils  of  their  condition,  and  make  them 
easy  under  it."     Habit  can  never  reconcile  human 
nature  to  the  extremities  of  cold,  hunger,  and  thirst, 
any  more  than  it  can  reconcile  the  hand  to  the  touch 
of  a  red  hot  iron:  besides,  the  question  is  not,  how 
unhappy  any  one  is,  but  how  much  more  happy  we 
can  make  him. 

8.  "  That   these  people,  give  them  what  you  will, 
will  never  thank  you  or  think  of  you  for  it."     In  the 
first  place,   that  is  not  true:    in  the  second  place,  it 
was  not  for  the  sake  of  their  thanks  that  you  relieved 
them. 

9.  "  That  we  are  liable  to  be  imposed  upon."    If  a 
due  inquiry  be  made,  our  merit  is  the  same:  beside 
that  the  distress  is  generally  real,  although  the  cause 
be  untruly  stated. 

10.  "  That  they   should  apply  to  their  parishes." 
This  is  not   always  practicable:    to  which  we  may 
add,  that  there  are  many  requisites  to  a  comfortable 
subsistence,  which  parish  relief  does  not  supply;  and 
that  there  are  some  who  would  suffer  almost  as  much 
from  receiving  parish  relief  as  by  the  want  of  it;  and 
lastly,  that  there  are  many  modes  of  charity  to  which 
this  answer  does  not  relate  at  all. 

11.  "That  giving  money  encourages  idleness  and 
vagrancy."     This  is  true  only  of  injudicious  and  indis- 
criminate generosity. 

12.  "  That  we  have  too  many  objects  of  charity  at 
home  to  bestow  any  thing  upon  strangers;  or,  that 
there  are  other  charities,   which  are  more  useful,  or 
stand  in  greater  need."      The  value  of  this  excuse 
depends  entirely  upon  the  fact,  whether  we  actually 
relieve  those  neighbouring  objects,  and  contribute  to 
those  other  charities. 

Beside  all  these  excuses,  pride  or  prudery  or  deli- 
cacy or  love  of  ease  keep  one  half  of  the  world  out  of 
the  way  of  observing  what  the  other  half  suffer. 


164  RESENTMENT. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

RESENTMENT. 

RESENTMENT  may  be  distinguished  into  anger 
and  revenge. 

By  anger,  I  mean  the  pain  we  suffer  upon  the  re- 
ceipt of  an  injury  or  affront,  with  the  usual  effects  of 
that  pain  upon  ourselves. 

By  revenge,  the  inflicting  of  pain  upon  the  person 
who  has  injured  or  offended  us,  further  than  the  just 
ends  of  punishment  or  reparation  require. 

Anger  prompts  to  revenge;  but  it  is  possible  to 
suspend  the  effect,  when  we  cannot  altogether  quelj 
the  principle.  We  are  bound  also  to  endeavour  ttt 
qualify  and  correct  the  principle  itself.  So  that  out 
duty  requires  two  different  applications  of  the  mind; 
and,  for  that  reason,  anger  and  revenge  may  be  con 
sidered  separately. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


"  BE  ye  angry,  and  sin  not;"  therefore  all  anger  ie 
not  sinful:  I  suppose,  because  some  degree  of  it,  and 
upon  some  occasions,  is  inevitable. 

It  becomes  sinful,  or  contradicts,  however,  the  rule 
of  Scripture,  when  it  is  conceived  upon  slight  and  in- 
adequate provocations,  and  when  it  continues  long. 

1.  When  it  is  conceived  upon  slight  provocations:  for, 
"  charity  suffereth   long,  is  not  easily  provoked." — 
"  Let  every  man  be  slow  to  anger."     Peace,  long- 
suffering,  gentleness,  meekness  are  enumerated  among 
the  fruits  of  the  spirit,  Gal.  v.  22.  and  compose  the 
true  Christian  temper,  as  to  this  article  of  duty. 

2.  When  it  continues  long:  for,  "  let  not  the  sun 
go  down  upon  your  wrath." 

These  precepts,  and  all  reasoning  indeed  on  the 
subject,  suppose  the  passion  of  anger  to  be  within  our 


ANGER.  165 

power:  and  thig  power  consists  not  so  much  in  any 
faculty  we  possess  of  appeasing  our  wrath  at  the  time 
(for  we  are  passive  under  the  smart  which  an  injury 
or  affront  occasions,  and  all  we  can  then  do  is  to  pre- 
vent its  breaking  out  into  action,)  as  in  so  mollifying 
our  minds  by  habits  of  just  reflection,  as  to  be  less 
irritated  by  impressions  of  injury,  and  to  be  sooner 
pacified. 

Reflections  proper  for  this  purpose,  and  which  may 
be  called  the  sedatives  of  anger,  are  the  following: 
The  possibility  of  mistaking  the  motives  from  which 
the  conduct  that  offends  us  proceeded;  how  often  our 
offences  have  been  the  effect  of  inadvertency,  when 
they  were  construed  into  indications  of  malice;  the 
inducement  which  prompted  our  adversary  to  act  as 
he  did,  and  how  powerfully  the  same  inducement 
has,  at  one  time  or  other,  operated  upon  ourselves; 
that  he  is  suffering  perhaps  under  a  contrition,  which 
he  is  ashamed,  or  wants  an  opportunity,  to  confess; 
and  how  ungenerous  it  is  to  triumph  by  coldness  or 
insult  over  a  spirit  already  humbled  in  secret;  that 
the  returns  of  kindness  are  sweet,  and  that  there  is 
neither  honour  nor  virtue  nor  use  in  resisting  them; 
— for  some  persons  think  themselves  bound  to  cherish 
and  keep  alive  their  indignation,  when  they  find  it 
dying  away  of  itself.  We  may  remember  that  others 
have  their  passions,  their  prejudices,  their  favourite 
aims,  their  fears,  their  cautions,  their  interests,  their 
sudden  impulses,  their  varieties  of  apprehension,  as 
well  as  we:  we  may  recollect  what  hath  sometimes 
passed  in  our  minds,  when  we  have  gotten  on  the 
wrong  side  of  a  quarrel,  and  imagine  the  same  to  be 
passing  in  our  adversary's  mind  now;  when  we  be- 
came sensible  of  our  misbehaviour,  what  palliations 
we  perceived  in  it,  and  expected  others  to  perceive; 
how  we  were  affected  by  the  kindness,  and  felt  the 
superiority  of  a  generous  reception  and  ready  forgive- 
ness; how  persecution  revived  our  spirits  with  our 
enmity,  and  seemed  to  justify  the  conduct  in  our- 
selves which  we  before  blamed.  Add  to  this,  the 
indecency  of  extravagant  anger;  how  it  renders  us, 
whilst  it  lasts  the  scorn  and  sport  of  all  about  us,  of 


166  REVENGE. 

which  it  leaves  us,  when  it  ceases,  sensible  and 
ashamed;  the  inconveniences  and  irretrievable  mis- 
conduct into  which  our  irascibility  has  sometimes 
betrayed  us;  the  friendships  it  has  lost  us;  the  dis- 
tresses and  embarrassments  in  which  we  have  been 
involved  by  it;  and  the  sore  repentance  which,  on 
one  account  or  other,  it  always  costs  us. 

But  the  reflection  calculated  above  all  others  to 
allay  the  haughtiness  of  temper  which  is  ever  rinding 
out  provocations,  and  which  renders  anger  so  impe- 
tuous, is  that  which  the  gospel  proposes;  namely, 
that  we  ourselves  are,  or  shortly  shall  be,  suppliants 
for  mercy  and  pardon  at  the  judgment-seat  of  God. 
Imagine  our  secret  sins  disclosed  and  brought  to 
light;  imagine  us  thus  humbled  and  exposed;  trem- 
bling under  the  hand  of  God;  casting  ourselves  on 
his  compassion;  crying  out  for  mercy: — imagine  such 
a  creature  to  talk  of  satisfaction  and  revenge;  refus- 
ing to  be  entreated,  disdaining  to  forgive;  extreme  to 
mark  and  to  resent  what  is  done  amiss: — imagine,  1 
say,  this,  and  you  can  hardly  frame  to  yourself  an  in- 
stance of  more  impious  and  unnatural  arrogance. 

The  point  is,  to  habituate  ourselves  to  these  reflec- 
tions, till  they  rise  up  of  their  own  accord  when  they 
are  wanted,  that  is,  instantly  upon  the  receipt  of  an 
injury  or  affront,  and  with  such  force  and  colouring, 
as  both  to  mitigate  the  paroxysms  of  our  anger  at  the 
time,  and  at  length  to  produce  an  alteration  in  the 
temper  and  disposition  itself. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

REVENGE. 

ALL  pain  occasioned  to  another  in  consequence  o. 
an  offence  or  injury  received  from  him,  further  than 
what  is  calculated  to  procure  reparation  or  promote 
the  just  ends  of  punishment,  is  so  much  revenge. 

There  can  be  no- difficulty  in  knowing  when  we  oc- 
casion pain  to  another;  nor  much  in  distinguishing, 


REVENGE.  167 

whether  we  do  so  with  a  view  only  to  the  ends  of 
punishment,  or  from  revenge:  for,  in  the  one  case  we 
proceed  with  reluctance,  in  the  other  with  pleasure. 

It  is  highly  probable  from  the  light  of  nature,  that 
a  passion,  which  seeks  its  gratification  immediately 
and  expressly  in  giving  pain,  is  disagreeable  to  the 
benevolent  will  and  counsels  of  the  Creator.  Other 
passions  and  pleasures  may,  and  often  do,  produce 
pain  to  some  one;  but  then  pain  is  not,  as  it  is  here, 
the  object  of  the  passion,  and  the  direct  cause  of  the 
pleasure.  This  probability  is  converted  into  certainty, 
if  we  give  credit  to  the  Authority  which  dictated  the 
several  passages  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  that  con- 
demn revenge,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  which  en- 
join forgiveness. 

We  will  set  down  the  principal  of  these  passages: 
and  endeavour  to  collect  from  them,  what  conduct 
upon  the  whole  is  allowed  towards  an  enemy,  and 
what  is  forbidden. 

"  If  ye  forgive  men  their  trespasses,  your  heavenly 
Father  will  also  forgive  you:  but  if  ye  forgive  not 
men  their  trespasses,  neither  will  your  Father  forgive 
your  trespasses." — "  And  his  lord  was  wroth,  and 
delivered  him  to  the  tormentors,  till  he  should  pay  all 
that  was  due  unto  him;  so  likewise  shall  my  hea- 
venly Father  do  also  unto  you,  if  ye  from  your  hearts 
forgive  not  every  one  his  brother  their  trespasses." — 
"  Put  on  bowels  of  mercy,  kindness,  humbleness  of 
mind,  meekness,  long-suffering;  forbearing  one  ano- 
ther, forgiving  one  another,  if  any  man  have  a  quar- 
rel against  any:  even  as  Chrkt  forgave  you,  so  also 
do  ye." — "  Be  patient  towards  all  men;  see  that  none 
render  evil  for  evil  to  any  man." — "  Avenge  not  your- 
selves, but  rather  give  place  unto  wrath:  for  it  is 
written,  Vengeance  is  mine;  I  will  repay,  saith  the 
Lord.  Therefore,  if  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him; 
if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink:  for  in  so  doing  thou 
shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his  head.  Be  not  over- 
come of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good."* 

*  Matt.  vi.  14,  15;  xviii.  34,  35.  Col.  iii,  12,  13.  1 
Ihess.  v.  14,  15  Rom.  xii.  19,  20,  21. 


168  REVENGE. 

I  think  it  evident,  from  some  of  these  passages 
taken  separately,  and  still  more  so  from  all  of  them 
together,  that  revenge,  as  described  in  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter,  is  forbidden  in  every  degree,  under 
all  forms,  and  upon  every  occasion.  We  are  likewise 
forbidden  to  refuse  to  an  enemy  even  the  most  imper- 
fect right;  "  if  he  hunger,  feed  him;  if  he  thirst, 
give  him  drink;"*  which  are  examples  of  imperfect 
rights.  If  one  who  has  offended  us  solicit  from  us 
a  vote  to  which  his  qualifications  entitle  him,  we  may 
not  refuse  it  from  motives  of  resentment,  or  the  re- 
membrance of  what  we  have  suffered  at  his  hands. 
His  right,  and  our  obligation  which  follows  the  right, 
are  not  altered  by  his  enmity  to  us,  or  by  ours  to  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  conceive  that  these 
prohibitions  were  intended  to  interfere  with  the  pun- 
ishment or  prosecution  of  public  offenders.  In  the 
eighteenth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  our  Saviour  tells 
his  disciples;  "  If  thy  brother  who  has  trespassed 
against  thee  neglect  to  hear  the  church,  let  him  be 
unto  thee  as  a  heathen  man,  and  a  publican."  Im- 
mediately after  this,  when  St.  Peter  asked  him,  "  How 
oft  shall  my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I  forgive  him  ? 
till  seven  times?"  Christ  replied,  "I  say  not  unto 
thee  until  seven  times,  but  until  seventy  times  seven;" 
that  is,  as  often  as  he  repeats  the  offence.  From 
these  two  adjoining  passages,  compared  together, 
we  are  authorized  to  conclude,  that  the  forgiveness  of 
an  enemy  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  proceeding 
against  him  as  a  public  offender;  and  that  the  dis- 
cipline established  in  religious  or  civil  societies  for 
the  restraint  or  punishment  of  criminals  ought  to  be 
upholden. 

If  the  magistrate  be  not  tied  down  with  these  pro- 
hibitions from  the  execution  of  his  office,  neither  is  the 
prosecutor;  for  the  office  of  the  prosecutor  is  as  neces- 
sary as  that  of  the  magistrate. 

*  See  also  Exodus,  xxiii.  4.  "  If  thou  meet  thine  enemy's 
ox,  or  his  ass,  going  astray,  thou  shall  surely  bring  it  back  to 
him  again  :  if  thou  see  the  ass  of  him  that  hateth  thee,  ly- 
ing under  his  burden,  and  wouldest  forbear  to  help  him,  thou 
shall  surely  help  with  him." 


REVENGE.  169 

Nor,  by  parity  of  reason,  are  private  persons  with- 
holden  from  the  correction  of  vice,  when  it  is  in  their 
power  to  exercise  it;  provided  they  be  assured  that  it 
is  the  guilt  which  provokes  them,  and  not  the  injury; 
and  that  their  motives  are  pure  from  all  mixture  and 
every  particle  of  that  spirit  which  delights  and  tri- 
umphs in  the  humiliation  of  an  adversary. 

Thus,  it  is  no  breach  of  Christian  charity  to  with- 
draw our  company  or  civility  when  the  same  tends  to 
discountenance  any  vicious  practice.  This  is  one 
branch  of  that  extrajudicial  discipline,  which  supplies 
the  defects  and  the  remissness  of  law;  and  is  ex- 
pressly authorized  by  St.  Paul  (1  Cor.  v.  11:)  "  But 
now  I  have  written  unto  you  not  to  keep  company,  if 
any  man  that  is  called  a  brother  be  a  fornicator,  or 
covetous,  or  an  idolater,  or  a  railer,  or  a  drunkard,  or 
an  extortioner;  with  such  an  one,  no  not  to  eat." 
The  use  of  this  association  against  vice  continues  to 
be  experienced  in  one  remarkable  instance,  and  might 
be  extended  with  good  effect  to  others.  The  con- 
federacy amongst  women  of  character,  to  exclude  from 
their  society  kept-mistresses  and  prostitutes,  contri- 
butes more  perhaps  to  discourage  that  condition  of 
life,  and  prevents  greater  numbers  from  entering  into 
it,  than  all  the  considerations  of  prudence  and  religion 
put  together. 

We  are  likewise  allowed  to  practise  so  much  cau- 
tion, as  not  to  put  ourselves  in  the  way  of  injury,  or 
invite  the  repetition  of  it.  If  a  servant  or  tradesman 
has  cheated  us,  we  are  not  bound  to  trust  him  again: 
for  this  is  to  encourage  him  in  his  dishonest  practices, 
which  is  doing  him  much  harm. 

Where  a  benefit  can  be  conferred  only  upon  one  or 
few,  and  the  choice  of  the  person  upon  whom  it  is  con- 
ferred is  a  proper  object  of  favour,  we  are  at  liberty 
to  prefer  those  who  have  not  offended  us  to  those  who 
have;  the  contrary  being  no  where  required. 

Christ,    who,    as  hath    been  well    demonstrated,* 


*  See   a  View  of  the  Internal    Evidence  of  the  Christian 
Religion. 

VOL.  I.  15 


170  DUELLING. 

estimated  virtues  by  their  solid  utility,  and  not  by 
their  fashion  or  popularity,  prefers  this  of  the  forgive- 
ness of  injuries  to  every  other.  He  enjoins  it  oftener; 
with  more  earnestness;  under  a  greater  variety  of 
forms;  and  witn  this  weighty  and  peculiar  circum- 
stance, that  the  forgiveness  of  others  is  the  condition 
upon  which  alone  we  are  to  expect,  or  even  ask,  from 
God,  forgiveness  for  ourselves.  And  this  preference 
is  justified  by  the  superior  importance  of  the  virtue 
itself.  The  feuds  and  animosities  in  families,  and  be- 
tween neighbours,  which  disturb  the  intercourse  of 
human  life,  and  collectively  compose  half  the  misery 
of  it,  have  their  foundation  in  the  want  of  a  forgiving 
temper;  and  can  never  cease,  but  by  the  exercise  of 
this  virtue,  on  one  side,  or  on  both. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DUELLING. 

DUELLING  as  a  punishment  is  absurd;  because  it  is 
an  equal  chance,  whether  the  punishment  fall  upon 
the  offender,  or  the  person  offended.  Nor  is  it  much 
better  as  a  reparation;  it  being  difficult  to  explain  in 
what  the  satisfaction  consists,  or  how  it  tends  to 
undo  the  injury,  or  to  afford  a  compensation  for  the 
damage  already  sustained. 

The  truth  is,  it  is  not  considered  as  either.  A  law 
of  honour  having  annexed  the  imputation  of  cowardice 
to  patience  under  an  affront,  challenges  are  given  and 
accepted  with  no  other  design  than  to  prevent  or  wipe 
off  this  suspicion;  without  malice  against  the  adver- 
sary, generally  without  a  wish  to  destroy  him,  or  any 
other  concern  than  to  preserve  the  duellist's  own  re- 
putation and  reception  in  the  world. 

The  unreasonableness  of  this  rule  of  manners  is  one 
consideration;  the  duty  and  conduct  of  individuals, 
while  such  a  rule  exists,  is  another. 

As  to   which,    the   proper    and    single  question  ia 


DUELLING.  171 

this:  whether  a  regard  for  our  own  reputation  is,  or 
is  not,  sufficient  to  justify  the  taking  away  the  life  of 
another  ? 

Murder  is  forbidden;  and  wherever  human  life  is 
deliberately  taken  away,  otherwise  than  by  public 
authority,  there  is  murder.  The  value  and  security 
of  human  life  make  this  rule  necessary;  for  I  do  not 
see  what  other  idea  or  definition  of  murder  can  be 
admitted,  which  will  not  let  in  so  much  private  vio- 
lence, as  to  render  society  a  scene  of  peril  and  blood- 
shed. 

If  unauthorized  laws  of  honour  be  allowed  to  create 
exceptions  to  Divine  prohibitions,  there  is  an  end  of 
all  morality,  as  founded  in  the  will  of  the  Deity;  and 
the  obligation  of  every  duty  may,  at  one  time  or  oth- 
er, be  discharged  by  the  caprice  and  fluctuations  of 
fashion. 

"  But  a  sense  of  shame  is  so  much  torture;  and  no 
relief  presents  itself  otherwise  than  by  an  attempt 
upon  the  life  of  our  adversary."  What  then  ?  The 
distress  which  men  suffer  by  the  want  of  money  is 
oftentimes  extreme,  and  no  resource  can  be  discover- 
ed but  that  of  removing  a  life  which  stands  between 
the  distressed  person  and  his  inheritance.  The  mo- 
tive in  this  case  is  as  urgent,  and  the  means  much  the 
same  as  in  the  former:  yet  this  case  finds  no  advocate. 

Take  away  the  circumstance  of  the  duellist's  ex- 
posing his  own  life,  and  it  becomes  assassination; 
add  this  circumstance,  and  what  difference  does  it 
make  ?  None  but  this,  that  fewer  perhaps  will  imitate 
the  example,  and  human  life  will  be  somewhat  more 
safe,  when  it  cannot  be  attacked  without  equal  danger 
to  the  aggressor's  own.  Experience,  however,  proves 
that  there  is  fortitude  enough  in  most  men  to  under- 
take this  hazard;  and  were  it  otherwise,  the  defence, 
at  best,  would  be  only  that  which  a  highwayman  or 
housebreaker  might  plead,  whose  attempt  had  been  so 
daring  and  desperate,  that  few  were  likely  to  repeat 
the  same. 

In  expostulating  with  the  duellist,  I  all  along  sup- 
pose his  adversary  to  fall.  Which  supposition  I  am 


172  DUELLING. 

at  liberty  to  make,  because,  if  he  have  no  right  to  kill 
his  adversary,  he  has  none  to  attempt  it. 

In  return,  I  forbear  from  applying  to  the  case  of 
duelling  the  Christian  principle  of  the  forgiveness  of 
injuries;  because  it  is  possible  to  suppose  the  injury 
to  be  forgiven,  and  the  duellist  to  act  entirely  from  a 
concern  for  his  own  reputation:  where  this  is  not  the 
case,  the  guilt  of  duelling  is  manifest,  and  is  greater. 

In  this  view  it  seems  unnecessary  to  distinguish  be- 
tween him  who  gives,  and  him  who  accepts,  a  chal- 
lenge: for,  on  the  one  hand,  they  incur  an  equal 
hazard  of  destroying  life;  and  on  the  other,  both  act 
upon  the  same  persuasion,  that  what  they  do  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  recover  or  preserve  the  good  opinion 
of  the  world. 

Public  opinion  is  not  easily  controlled  by  civil  insti- 
tutions: for  which  reason  I  question  whether  any  reg- 
ulations can  be  contrived,  of  sufficient  force  to  sup- 
press or  change  the  rule  of  honour,  which  stigma- 
tizes all  scruples  about  duelling  with  the  reproach  of 
cowardice. 

The  insufficiency  of  the  redress  which  the  law  of 
the  land  affords,  for  those  injuries  which  chiefly  affect 
a  man  in  his  sensibility  and  reputation,  tempts  many 
to  redress  themselves.  Prosecutions  for  such  otfences, 
by  the  trifling  damages  that  are  recovered,  serve  only 
to  make  the  sufferer  more  ridiculous. — This  ought  to 
be  remedied. 

For  the  army,  where  the  point  of  honour  is  culti- 
vated with  exquisite  attention  and  refinement,  I  would 
establish  a  Court  of  Honour,  with  a  power  of  award- 
ing those  submissions  and  acknowledgments,  which 
it  is  generally  the  purpose  of  a  challenge  to  obtain; 
arid  it  might  grow  into  a  fashion,  with  persons  of  rank 
of  all  professions,  to  refer  their  quarrels  to  this  tribunal. 

Duelling,  as  the  law  now  stands,  can  seldom  be 
overtaken  by  legal  punishment.  The  challenge,  ap 
pointment,  and  other  previous  circumstances  which 
indicate  the  intention  with  which  the  combatants  met, 
being  suppressed,  nothing  appears  to  a  court  of  justice 
but  the  actual  rencounter;  and  if  a  person  be  slain 
when  actually  fighting  with  his  adversary,  the  law 
deems  his  death  nothing  more  than  manslaughter. 


LITIGATION.  173 


CHAPTER  X. 

LITIGATION. 

'*  IF  it  be  possible,  live  peaceably  with  all  men;" 
which  precept  contains  an  indirect  confession  that  this 
is  not  always  possible. 

The  instances*  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew 
are  rather  to  be  understood  as  proverbial  methods  of 
describing  the  general  duties  of  forgiveness  and  bene- 
volence, and  the  temper  which  we  ought  to  aim  at 
acquiring,  than  as  directions  to  be  specifically  ob- 
served, or  of  themselves  of  any  great  importance  to  be 
observed.  The  first  of  these  is,  "  If  thine  enemy  smite 
thee  on  the  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also;" 
yet,  when  one  of  the  officers  struck  Jesus  with  the 
palm  of  his  hand,  we  find  Jesus  rebuking  him  for  the 
outrage  with  becoming  indignation:  "  If  I  have 
spoken  evil,  bear  witness  of  the  evil;  but  if  well,  why 
smitest  thou  me  ?"  (John,  xviii.  23.)  It  may  be  ob- 
served, likewise,  that  the  several  examples  are  drawn 
from  instances  of  small  and  tolerable  injuries.  A  rule 
which  forbade  all  opposition  to  injury,  or  defence 
against  it,  could  have  no  other  effect  than  to  put  the 
good  in  subjection  to  the  bad,  and  deliver  one  half  of 
mankind  to  the  depredation  of  the  other  half;  which 
must  be  the  case,  so  long  as  some  considered  them- 
selves as  bound  by  such  a  rule,  whilst  others  despised 
it.  St.  Paul,  though  no  one  inculcated  forgiveness 
and  forbearance  with  a  deeper  sense  of  the  value  and 
obligation  of  these  virtues,  did  not  interpret  either  of 
them  to  require  an  unresisting  submission  to  every 
contumely,  or  a  neglect  of  the  means  of  safety  and 
self-defence.  He  took  refuge  in  the  laws  of  his  coun- 
try, and  in  the  privileges  of  a  Roman  citizen,  from  the 
conspiracy  of  the  Jews  (Acts,  xxv.  11;)  and  from  the 


*  "  Whoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to 

him  the  other  also  ;  and  if  any  man  will  sue  thee  at  the  law, 

and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have   thy  cloak   also  ;  and 

whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go  a  mile,  go  with  him  twain." 

VOL-  i.  15  * 


174  LITIGATION. 

clandestine  violence  of  the  chief  captain  (Acts,  xxii. 
25.)  And  yet  this  is  the  same  apostle  who  reproved 
the  litigiousness  of  his  Corinthian  converts  with  so 
much  severity.  "  Now,  therefore,  there  is  utterly  a 
fault  among  you,  because  ye  go  to  law  one  with  ano- 
ther. Why  do  ye  not  rather  take  wrong  ?  why  do  ye 
not  rather  suffer  yourselves  to  be  defrauded  ?" 

On  the  other  hand,  therefore,  Christianity  excludes 
all  vindictive  motives,  and  all  frivolous  causes  of  pro- 
secution; so  that  where  the  injury  is  small,  where  no 
good  purpose  of  public  example  is  answered,  where 
forbearance  is  not  likely  to  invite  a  repetition  of  the 
injury,  or  where  the  expense  of  an  action  becomes  a 
punishment  too  severe  for  the  offence;  there  the 
Christian  is  withholden  by  the  authority  of  his  reli- 
gion from  going  to  law. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  lawsuit  is  inconsistent  with 
no  rule  of  the  gospel,  when  it  is  instituted, — 

1.  For  the  establishing  of  some  important  right. 

2.  For  the  procuring  a  compensation  for  some  con- 
siderable damage. 

3.  For  the  preventing  of  future  injury. 

But,  since  it  is  supposed  to  be  undertaken  simply 
with  a  view  to  the  ends  of  justice  and  safety,  the  pro- 
secutor of  the  action  is  bound  to  confine  himself  to 
the  cheapest  process  which  will  accomplish  these  ends, 
as  well  as  to  consent  to  any  peaceable  expedient  for 
the  same  purpose;  as  to  a  reference,  in  which  the 
arbitrators  can  do  what  the  law  cannot,  divide  the 
damage  when  the  fault  is  mutual;  or  to  a  compound- 
ing of  the  dipute,  by  accepting  a  compensation  in  the 
gross,  without  entering  into  articles  and  items,  which 
it  is  often  very  difficult  to  adjust  separately. 

As  to  the  rest,  the  duty  of  the  contending  parties 
may  be  expressed  in  the  following  directions: 

Not  by  appeals  to  prolong  a  suit  against  your  own 
conviction. 

Not  to  undertake  or  defend  a  suit  against  a  poor 
adversary,  or  render  it  more  dilatory  or  expensive  than 
necessary,  with  the  hope  of  intimidating  or  wearying 
him  out  by  the  erpense. 


LITIGATION.  175 

Not  to  influence  evidence  by  authority  or  expecta- 
tion; 

Nor  to  stifle  any  in  your  possession,  although  it 
make  against  you. 

Hitherto  we  have  treated  of  civil  actions.  In  crimi- 
nal prosecutions,  the  private  injury  should  be  forgot- 
ten, and  the  prosecutor  proceed  with  the  same  temper, 
and  upon  the  same  motives  as  the  magistrate:  the  one 
being  a  necessary  minister  of  justice  as  well  as  the 
other,  and  both  bound  to  direct  their  conduct  by  a 
dispassionate  care  of  the  public  welfare. 

In  whatever  degree  the  punishment  of  an  offender 
is  conducive,  or  his  escape  dangerous,  to  the  interest 
of  the  community,  in  the  same  degree  is  the  party 
against  whom  the  crime  was  committed  bound  to 
prosecute,  because  such  prosecutions  must  in  their 
nature  originate  irom  the  sufferer. 

Therefore  great  public  crimes,  as  robberies,  forge- 
ries, and  the  like,  ought  not  to  be  spared,  from  an  ap- 
prehension of  trouble  or  expense  in  carrying  on  the 
prosecution,  from  false  shame,  or  misplaced  compas- 
sion. 

There  are  many  offences,  such  as  nuisances,  neglect 
of  public  roads,  forestalling,  engrossing,  smuggling, 
sabbath-breaking,  profaneness,  drunkenness,  prostitu- 
tion, the  keeping  of  lewd  or  disorderly  houses,  the  writ- 
ing, publishing,  or  exposing  to  sale  lascivious  books 
or  pictures,  with  some  others,  the  prosecution  of  which, 
being  of  equal  concern  to  the  whole  neighbourhood, 
cannot  be  charged  as  a  peculiar  obligation  upon  any. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  great  merit  in  the  person  who 
undertakes  such  prosecutions  upon  proper  motives; 
which  amounts  to  the  same  thing. 

The  character  of  an  informer  is  in  this  country  un- 
deservedly odious.  But  where  any  public  advantage 
is  likely  to  be  attained  by  information,  or  other  acti- 
vity in  promoting  the  execution  of  the  laws,  a  good 
man  will  despise  a  prejudice  founded  in  no  just  reason, 
or  will  acquit  himself  of  the  imputation  of  interested 
designs  by  giving  away  his  share  of  the  penalty. 

On  the  other  hand,  prosecutions  for  the  sake  of  the 
reward,  or  for  the  gratification  of  private  enmity, 


176  GRATITUDE. 

where  the  offence  produces  no  public  mischief,  or 
where  it  arises  from  ignorance  or  inadvertency,  are 
reprobated  under  the  general  description  of  applying 
a  rule  of  law  to  a  purpose  for  which  it  was  not  in- 
tended. Under  which  description  may  be  ranked  an 
officious  revival  of  the  laws  against  popish  priests  and 
dissenting  teachers 


CHAPTER  XI. 

GRATITUDE. 

EXAMPLES  of  ingratitude  check  and  discourage 
voluntary  beneficence:  and  in  this  the  mischief  of  in- 
gratitude consists.  Nor  is  the  mischief  small;  for  af- 
ter all  is  done  that  can  be  done,  towards  providing  for 
the  public  happiness,  by  prescribing  rules  of  justice, 
and  enforcing  the  observation  of  them  by  penalties  or 
compulsion,  much  must  be  left  to  those  offices  of  kind- 
ness which  men  remain  at  liberty  to  exert  or  withhold. 
Now  not  only  the  choice  of  the  objects,  but  the  quan- 
tity, and  even  the  existence  of  this  sort  of  kindness  in 
the  world,  depends,  in  a  great  measure,  upon  the  re- 
turn which  it  receives:  and  this  is  a  consideration  of 
general  importance. 

A  second  reason  for  cultivating  a  grateful  temper 
in  ourselves  is  the  following:  The  same  principle 
which  is  touched  with  the  kindness  of  a  human  bene- 
factor is  capable  of  being  affected  by  the  Divine  good- 
ness, and  of  becoming,  under  the  influence  of  that 
affection,  a  source  of  the  purest  and  most  exalted  vir- 
tue. The  love  of  God  is  the  sublimest  gratitude.  It 
is  a  mistake,  therefore,  to  imagine,  that  this  virtue  is 
omitted  in  the  Christian  Scriptures;  for  every  precept 
which  commands  us  "  to  love  God,  because  he  first 
loved  us,"  presupposes  the  principle  of  gratitude,  and 
directs  it  to  its  proper  object. 

It  is  impossible  to  particularize  the  several  expres- 
sions of  gratitude,  inasmuch  as  they  vary  with  the 
character  and  situation  of  the  benefactor,  and  with  the 


SLANDER,  177 

opportunities  of  the  person  obliged;  which  variety 
admits  of  no  bounds. 

It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  gratitude  can 
never  oblige  a  man  to  do  what  is  wrong,  and  what  by 
consequence  he  is  previously  obliged  not  to  do.  It  ia 
no  ingratitude  to  refuse  to  do  what  we  cannot  recon- 
cile to  any  apprehensions  of  our  duty;  but  it  is  ingra- 
titude and  hypocrisy  together,  to  pretend  this  reason, 
when  it  is  not  the  real  one:  and  the  frequency  of  such 
pretences  has  brought  this  apology  for  non-compliance 
with  the  will  of  a  benefactor  into  unmerited  disgrace. 

It  has  long  been  accounted  a  violation  of  delicacy 
and  generosity  to  upbraid  men  with  the  favours  they 
have  received:  but  it  argues  a  total  destitution  of  both 
these  qualities,  as  well  as  of  moral  probity,  to  take 
advantage  of  that  ascendency  which  the  conferring  of 
benefits  justly  creates,  to  draw  or  drive  those  whom 
we  have  obliged  into  mean  or  dishonest  compliances 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SLANDER. 

SPEAKING  is  acting,  both  in  philosophical  strict- 
ness, and  as  to  all  moral  purposes:  for  if  the  mischief 
and  motive  of  our  conduct  be  the  same,  the  means 
which  we  use  make  no  difference. 

And  this  is  in  effect  what  our  Saviour  declares, 
Matt.  xii.  37: — "  By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  justified, 
and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  condemned:"  by  thy 
words,  as  well,  that  is,  as  by  thy  actions;  the  one 
shall  be  taken  into  the  account  as  well  as  the  other, 
for  they  both  possess  the  same  property  of  voluntarily 
producing  good  or  evil. 

Slander  may  be  distinguished  into  two  kinds:  ma- 
licious slander,  and  inconsiderate  slander. 

Malicious  slander  is  the  relating  of  either  truth  or 
ialsehood,  for  the  purpose  of  creating  misery. 

I  acknowledge  that  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  what 


178  SLANDER. 

is  related  varies  the  degree  of  guilt  considerably;  and 
that  slander,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term, 
signifies  the  circulation  of  mischievous  falsehoods:  but 
truth  may  be  made  instrumental  to  the  success  of 
malicious  designs  as  well  as  falsehood;  and  if  the 
end  be  bad,  the  means  cannot  be  innocent. 

I  think  the  idea  of  slander  ought  to  be  confined  to 
the  production  of  gratuitous  mischief.  When  we  have 
an  end  or  interest  of  our  own  to  serve,  if  we  attempt 
to  compass  it  by  falsehood,  it  is  fraud ;  if  by  a  pub- 
lication of  the  truth,  it  is  not,  without  some  additional 
circumstance  of  breach  of  promise,  betraying  of  con- 
fidence, or  the  like,  to  be  deemed  criminal. 

Sometimes  the  pain  is  intended  for  the  person  to 
whom  we  are  speaking:  at  other  times,  an  enmity  is 
to  be  gratified  by  the  prejudice  or  disquiet  of  a  third 
person.  To  infuse  suspicions,  to  kindle  or  continue 
disputes,  to  avert  the  favour  and  esteem  of  benefactors 
from  their  dependants,  to  render  some  one  whom  we 
dislike  contemptable  or  obnoxious  in  the  public  opi- 
nion, are  all  offices  of  slander;  of  which  the  guilt  must 
be  measured  by  the  intensity  and  extent  of  the  misery 
produced. 

The  disguises  under  which  slander  is  conveyed, 
whether  in  a  whisper,  with  injunctions  of  secrecy,  by 
way  of  caution,  or  with  affected  reluctance,  are  all  so 
many  aggravations  of  the  offence,  as  they  indicate 
more  deliberation  and  design. 

Inconsiderate  slander  is  a  different  offence,  although 
the  same  mischief  actually  follow,  and  although  the 
mischief  might  have  been  foreseen.  The  not  being 
conscious  of  that  design  which  we  have  hitherto  at- 
tributed to  the  slanderer,  makes  the  difference. 

The  guilt  here  consists  in  the  want  of  that  regard 
to  the  consequences  of  our  conduct,  which  a  just  affec- 
tion for  human  happiness,  and  concern  for  our  duty, 
would  not  have  failed  to  have  produced  in  us.  And 
it  is  no  answer  to  this  crimination  to  say,  that  we  en- 
tertained no  evil  design.  A  servant  may  be  a  very 
bad  servant,  and  yet  seldom  or  never  design  to  act  in 
opposition  to  his  master's  interest  or  will:  and  his 
master  may  justly  punish  such  servant  for  a  thought- 


RELATIVE  DUTIES.  179 

lessness  and  neglect  nearly  as  prejudicial  as  deliberate 
disobedience.  I  accuse  you  not,  he  may  say,  of  any 
express  intention  to  hurt  me;  but  had  not  the  fear  of 
my  displeasure,  the  care  of  my  interest,  and  indeed  all 
the  qualities  which  constitute  the  merit  of  a  good 
servant,  been  wanting  in  you,  they  would  not  only 
have  excluded  every  direct  purpose  of  giving  me  un- 
easiness, but  have  been  so  far  present  to  your  thoughts 
as  to  have  checked  that  unguarded  licentiousness  by 
which  I  have  suffered  so  much,  and  inspired  you  in 
its  place  with  an  habitual  solicitude  about  the  effects 
and  tendency  of  what  you  did  or  said. — This  very 
much  resembles  the  case  of  all  sins  of  inconsideration; 
and,  amongst  the  foremost  of  these,  that  of  inconsi- 
derate slander. 

Information  communicated  for  the  real  purpose  of 
warning,  or  cautioning,  is  not  slander. 

Indiscriminate  praise  is  the  opposite  of  slander,  but 
it  is  the  opposite  extreme;  and,  however  it  may  effect 
to  be  thought  excess  of  candour,  is  commonly  the 
effusion  of  a  frivolous  understanding,  or  proceeds  from 
a  settled  contempt  of  all  moral  distinctions 


BOOK  III. 


PART  III. 

OF    RELATIVE    DUTIES   WHICH  RESULT  FROM  THE 
CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  SEXES 

THE  constitution  of  the  sexes  is  the  foundation  of 
marriage. 

Collateral  to  the  subject  of  marriage  are  fornica- 
tion, seduction,  adultery,  incest,  polygamy,  divorce. 


180  MARRIAGE    INSTITUTION. 

Consequential  to  marriage  is  the  relation  and  reci- 
procal duty  of  parent  and  child. 

We  will  treat  of  these  subjects  in  the  following 
order:  first,  of  the  public  use  of  marriage  institutions; 
secondly,  of  the  subjects  collateral  to  marriage,  in  the 
order  in  which  we  have  here  proposed  them;  thirdly, 
of  marriage  itself;  and,  lastly,  of  the  relation  and 
reciprocal  duties  of  parents  and  children. 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF    THE  PUBLIC  USE   OF  MARRIAGE 
INSTITUTIONS. 

THE  public  use   of  marriage  institutions  consists  in 
their  promoting  the  following  beneficial  effects 

1.  The  private  comfort  of  individuals,  especially  of 
the  female  sex.     It  may  be  true,  that  all  are  not  inter- 
ested in  this  reason;  nevertheless,  it  is  a  reason  to  all 
for  abstaining  from   any   conduct  which  tends  in  its 
general  consequence  to  obstruct   marriage;  for  what- 
ever promotes  the  happiness  of  the  majority  is  binding 
upon  the  whole. 

2.  The   production  of  the  greatest  number  of  heal  - 
thy   children,   their  better  education,  and  the  making 
of  due  provision  for  their  settlement  in  life. 

3.  The   peace  of  human  society,  in  cutting  ofl  a 
principal  source  of  contention,  by   assigning   one  or 
more  women  to  one  man,  and  protecting  his  exclusive 
right  by  sanctions  of  morality  and  law. 

4.  The  better  government  of  society,  by  distributing 
the  community   into  separate  families,  and  appointing 
over  each  the  authority  of  a  master  of  a  family,  which 
has  more  actual  influence  than  all  civil  authority  put 
together. 

5.  The  same  end,  in  the  additional  security  which 
the  state  receives  for  the  good  behaviour  of  its  citizens, 
from  the  solicitude  they  feel  for  the  welfare  of  their 


FORNICATION.  181 

children,  and  from  their  being  confined  to  permanent 
habitations. 

6.  The  encouragement  of  industry. 

Some  ancient  nations  appear  to  have  been  more 
sensible  of  the  importance  of  marriage  institutions  than 
we  are.  The  Spartans  obliged  their  citizens  to  marry 
by  penalties,  and  the  Romans  encouraged  theirs  by 
the  jus  trium  liberorum.  A  man  who  had  no  child 
was  entitled,  by  the  Roman  law,  only  to  one  half  of 
any  legacy  that  should  be  left  him,  that  is,  at  the  most, 
could  only  receive  one  half  of  the  testator's  fortune. 


CHAPTER  II. 

FORNICATION. 

THE  first  and  great  mischief,  and  by  consequence 
the  guilt,  of  promiscuous  concubinage,  consists  in  its 
tendency  to  diminish  marriages,  and  thereby  to  defeat 
the  several  beneficial  purposes  enumerated  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter. 

Promiscuous  concubinage  discourages  marriage,  by 
abating  the  chief  temptation  to  it.  The  male  part  of 
the  species  will  not  undertake  the  incumbrance,  ex- 
pense, and  restraint  of  married  life,  if  they  can  gratify 
their  passions  at  a  cheaper  price;  and  they  will  under- 
take any  thing,  rather  than  not  gratify  them. 

The  reader  will  learn  to  comprehend  the  magnitude 
of  this  mischief,  by  attending  to  the  importance  and 
variety  of  the  uses  to  which  marriage  is  subservient: 
and  by  recollecting  withal,  that  the  malignity  and 
moral  quality  of  each  crime  is  not  to  be  estimated  by 
the  particular  effect  of  one  offence,  or  of  one  person's 
offending,  but  by  the  general  tendency  and  conse- 
quence of  crimes  of  the  same  nature.  The  libertine 
may  not  be  conscious  that  these  irregularities  hinder 
his  own  marriage,  from  which  he  is  deterred,  he  may 
allege,  by  different  considerations;  much  less  does  he 
perceive  how  his  indulgences  can  hinder  other  men 

VOL   i.  16 


182  FORNICATION". 

from  marrying;  but  what  will  he  say  would  bo  the 
consequence,  if  the  same  licenciousness  were  univer- 
sal ?  or  what  should  hinder  it  becoming  universal,  if 
it  be  innocent  or  allowable  in  him  ? 

2.  fornication  supposes   prostitution;    and    prosti- 
tution  brings   and  leaves  the  victims  of  it  to  almost 
certain  misery.     It  is  no  small   quantity  of  misery  in 
the  aggregate,  which,   between    want,  disease,  and 
insult,  is  suffered  by   those  outcasts  of  human  society 
who   infest  populous  cities;  the  whole  of  which  is  a 
general  consequence  of  fornication,   and  to  the  in- 
crease  and   continuance   of  which  every  act  and  in- 
stance of  fornication  contributes. 

3.  Fornication*   produces  habits   of  ungovernable 
lewdness,  which  introduce  the  more  aggravated  crimes 
of  seduction,  adultery,  violation,  &c.    Likewise,  how- 
ever it   be  accounted  for,  the  criminal  commerce  of 
the  sexes  corrupts   and  depraves  the  mind  and  moral 
character  more  than  any  single  species  of  vice  what- 
soever.    That   ready  perception  of  guilt,  that  prompt 
and  decisive  resolution  against  it,  which  constitutes  a 
virtuous  character*  is  seldom  found  in  persons  addicted 
to   these  indulgences.     They   prepare  an  easy  admis- 
sion for  every  sin  that  seeks  it;  are,  in  low  life,  usu- 
ally the  first  stage  in  men's  progress   to  the  most  des- 
perate  villanies;    and,   in  high  life,  to  that  lamented 
dissoluteness  of  principle   which  manifests  itself  in  a 
profligacy  of  public  conduct,  and  a  contempt  of  the 
obligations  of  religion  arid  of  moral  probity.     Add  to 
this,  that  habits  of  libertinism  incapacitate  and  indis- 
pose the  mind  for   all  intellectual,    moral,   and  reli- 
gious pleasures;  which   is  a  great  loss  to  any  man's 
happiness. 

4.  Fornication  perpetuates  a  disease,  which  may  be 
accounted  one   of  the  sorest  maladies  of  human  na- 


*  Of  this  passion  it  has  been  truly  said,  that  "irregularity 
has  no  limits  ;  that  one  excess  draws  on  another ;  that  the 
most  easy,  therefore,  as  well  as  the  most  excellent  way  of 
being  virtuous,  is  to  be  so  entirely."  Ogden,  Sermon  xvL 


FORNICATION.  183 

ture;  and  the  effects  of  which  are  said  to  visit  the 
constitution  of  even  distant  generations.  * 

The  passion  being  natural,  proves  that  it  was  in- 
tended to  be  gratified;  but  under  what  restrictions, 
or  whether  without  any,  must  be  collected  from  dif- 
ferent considerations. 

The  Christian  Scriptures  condemn  fornication  ab- 
solutely and  peremptorily.  "  Out  of  the  heart,"  says 
our  Saviour,  "  proceed  evil  thoughts,  murders,  adul- 
teries, fornication,  thefts,  false  witness,  blasphemies; 
these  are  the  things  which  defile  a  man."  These  are 
Christ's  own  words:  and  one  word  from  him  upon 
the  subject  is  final.  It  may  be  observed  with  what 
society  fornication  is  classed;  with  murders,  thefts, 
false  witness,  blasphemies.  I  do  not  mean  that  these 
crimes  are  all  equal,  because  they  are  all  mentioned 
together;  but  it  proves  that  they  are  all  crimes.  The 
apostles  are  more  full  upon  this  topic.  One  well 
known  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  may 
stand  in  the  place  of  all  others;  because,  admitting 
the  authority  by  which  the  apostles  of  Christ  spake 
and  wrote,  it  is  decisive:  "Marriage,  and  the  bed 
undefiled,  is  honourable  amongst  all  men;  but  whore- 
mongers and  adulterers  God  will  judge;"  which  was 
a  great  deal  to  say,  at  a  time  when  it  was  not  agreed, 
even  amongst  philosophers  themselves,  that  fornica- 
tion was  a  crime. 

The  Scriptures  give  no  sanction  to  those  austerities 
which  have  been  since  imposed  upon  the  world  under 
the  name  of  Christ's  religion;  as  the  celibacy  of  the 
clergy,  the  praise  of  perpetual  virginity,  the  prohibitio 
concubitus  cum  gravida  uxore ;  but,  with  a  just 
knowledge  of  and  regard  to  the  condition  and  interest 
of  the  human  species,  have  provided,  in  the  marriage 
of  one  man  with  one  woman,  an  adequate  gratifica- 
tion for  the  propensities  of  their  nature,  and  have 
restricted  them  to  that  gratification. 

The  avowed  toleration,  and  in  some  countries  the 
licencing,  taxing,  and  regulating  of  public  brothels  has 
appeared  to  the  people  an  authorizing  of  fornication; 
and  has  contributed,  with  other  causes,  so  far  to  vitiate 
the  public  opinion,  that  there  is  no  practice  of  which 


184  FORNICATION. 

the  immorality  is  so  little  thought  of  or  acknowledged, 
although  tthere  are  few  in  which  it  can  more  plainly 
be  made  out.  The  legislators  who  have  patronized 
receptacles  of  prostitution  ought  to  have  foreseen  this 
effect,  as  well  as  considered,  that  whatever  facilitates 
fornication,  diminishes  marriages.  And,  as  to  the 
usual  apology  for  this  relaxed  discipline,  the  danger 
of  greater  enormities,  if  access  to  prostitutes  were  too 
strictly  watched  and  prohibited,  it  will  be  time  enough 
to  look  to  that,  when  the  laws  and  the  magistrates 
have  done  their  utmost.  The  greatest  vigilance  of 
both  will  do  no  more  than  oppose  some  bounds  and 
some  difficulties  to  this  intercourse.  And,  after  all, 
these  pretended  fears  are  without  foundation  in  expe- 
rience. The  men  are  in  all  respects  the  most  virtuous, 
In  countries  where  the  women  are  most  chaste. 

There  is  a  species  of  cohabitation,  distinguishable, 
no  doubt,  from  vagrant  concubinage,  and  which,  by 
reason  of  its  resemblance  to  marriage,  may  be  thought 
to  participate  of  the  sanctity  and  innocence  of  that 
estate;  I  mean  the  case  of  kept-mistresses,  under  the 
favourable  circumstance  of  mutual  fidelity.  This 
case  I  have  heard  defended  by  some  such  apology  as 
the  following: — 

"  That  the  marriage-rite  being  different  in  different 
countries,  and  in  the  same  country  amongst  different 
sects,  and  with  some  scarce  any  thing;  and,  more- 
over, not  being  prescribed,  or  even  mentioned  in 
Scripture,  can  be  accounted  for  only  as  of  a  form  and 
ceremony  of  human  invention:  that,  consequently,  if 
a  man  and  woman  betroth  and  confine  themselves  to 
each  other,  their  intercourse  must  be  the  same,  as  to 
all  moral  purposes,  as  if  they  were  legally  married; 
for  the  addition  or  omission  of  that  which  is  a  mere 
form  and  ceremony  can  make  no  difference  in  the 
sight  of  God,  or  in  the  actual  nature  of  right  and 
wrong." 

To  all  which  it  may  be  replied, 

1.  If  the  situation  of  the  parties  be  the  same  thing 
as  marriage,  why  do  they  not  marry  ? 

2.  Tf  the  man  choose  to  have  it  in  his  power  to  dis- 
miss the   woman  at  his  pleasure,  or  to  retain  her  in  a 


FORNICATION.  185 

state  of  humiliation  and  dependence,  inconsistent  with 
the  rights  which  marriage  would  confer  upon  her,  it 
is  not  the  same  thing. 

It  is  not,  at  any  rate,  the  &ame  thing  to  the  chil- 
dren. 

Again,  as  to  the  marriage-rite  being  a  mere  form, 
and  that  also  variable,  the  same  may  be  said  of  sign- 
ing and  sealing  of  bonds,  wills,  deeds  of  conveyance, 
and  the  like,  which  yet  make  a  great  difference  in  the 
rights  and  obligations  of  the  parties  concerned  in  them. 

And  with  respect  to  the  rite  not  being  appointed  in 
Scripture — the  Scriptures  forbid  fornication,  that  is, 
cohabitation  without  marriage,  leaving  it  to  the  law 
of  each  country  to  pronounce  what  is,  or  what  makes 
a  marriage ;"  in  like  manner  as  they  forbid  thefts,  that 
is,  the  taking  away  of  another's  property,  leaving  it 
to  the  municipal  law  to  fix  what  makes  the  thing  pro- 
perty, or  whose  it  is;  which  also,  as  well  as  marriage, 
depend  upon  arbitrary  and  mutable  forms. 

Laying  aside  the  injunctions  of  Scripture,  the  plain 
account  of  the  question  seems  to  be  this:  It  is  immo- 
ral, because  it  is  pernicious,  that  men  and  women 
should  cohabit,  without  undertaking  certain  irrevoca- 
ble obligations,  and  mutually  conferring  certain  civil 
rights;  if,  therefore,  the  law  has  annexed  these  rights 
and  obligations  to  certain  forms,  so  that  they  cannot 
be  secured  or  undertaken  by  any  other  means,  which 
i;s  the  case  here  (for  whatever  the  parties  may  promise 
to  each  other,  nothing  but  the  marriage  ceremony  can 
make  their  promise  irrevocable,)  it  becomes  in  the 
same  degree  immoral,  that  men  and  women  should 
cohabit  without  the  interposition  of  these  forms. 

IF  fornication  be  criminal,  all  those  incentives  which 
lead  to  it  are  accessaries  to  the  crime;  as  lasciviouo 
conversation,  whether  expressed  in  obscene  or  dis- 
guised under  modest  phrases;  also  wanton  songs, 
pictures,  books;  the  writing,  publishing,  and  circu- 
lating of  which,  whether  out  of  frolic,  or  for  some  pi- 
tiful profit,  is  productive  of  so  extensive  a  mischief, 
from  so  mean  a  temotation,  that  few  crimes,  within 

VOL,,  i.  16  * 


186  SEDUCTION. 

the  reach  of  private  wickedness,  have  more  to  answer 
for,  or  less  to  plead  in  their  excuse. 

Indecent  conversation  and,  by  parity  of  reason,  all 
the  rest  are  forbidden  by  St.  Paul,  Eph.  iv.  29.  "  Let 
no  corrupt  communication  proceed  out  of  your  mouth;" 
and  again,  CoJ.  iii.  8.  "  Put  off- — filthy  communica- 
tion out  of  your  mouth." 

The  invitation,  or  voluntary  admission,  of  impure 
thoughts,  or  the  suffering  them  to  get  possession  of 
the  imagination,  falls  within  the  same  description, 
and  is  condemned  by  Christ,  Matt.  v.  28.  "  Whoso- 
ever looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her,  hath  com- 
mitted adultery  with  her  already  in  his  heart." — 
Christ,  ly  thus  enjoining  a  regulation  of  the  thoughts, 
strikes  at  the  root  of  the  evil. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SEDUCTION. 

THE  seducer  practises  the  same  stratagems  to  draw 
a  woman's  person  into  his  power,  that  a  swindler  does 
to  get  possession  of  your  goods  or  money;  yet  the  law 
of  honour,  which  abhors  deceit,  applauds  the  address 
of  a  successful  intrigue:  so  much  is  this  capricious 
rule  guided  by  names,  and  with  such  facility  does  it 
accommodate  itself  to  the  pleasures  and  conveniency 
of  higher  life! 

Seduction  is  seldom  accomplished  without  fraud; 
and  the  fraud  is  by  so  much  more  criminal  than  other 
frauds,  as  the  injury  effected  by  it  is  greater,  continues 
longer,  and  less  admits  reparation. 

This  injury  is  threefold:  to  the  woman,  to  her  fa- 
mily, and  to  the  public. 

1.  The  injury  to  the  woman  is  made  up  of  the  pain 
she  suffers  from  shame,  or  the  loss  she  sustains  in  her 
reputation  and  prospects  of  marriage,  and  of  the  de- 
pravation of  her  moral  principle. 

1.  This  pain  must  be  extreme,  if  we  may  judge  of 
it  from  those  barbarous  endeavours  to  conceal  their 


SEDUCTION.  187 

disgrace,  to  which  women,  under  such  circumstances, 
sometimes  have  recourse;  comparing  also  this  barba- 
rity with  their  passionate  fondness  for  their  offspring 
in  other  cases.  Nothing  but  an  agony  of  mind  the 
most  insupportable  can  induce  a  woman  to  forget  her 
nature,  and  the  pity  which  even  a  stranger  would 
show  to  a  helpless  and  imploring  infant.  It  is  true, 
that  all  are  not  urged  to  this  extremity;  but  if  any 
are,  it  affords  an  indication  of  how  much  all  suffer 
from  the  same  cause.  What  shall  we  say  to  the  au- 
thors of  such  mischief? 

2.  The  loss  which  a  woman  sustains  by  the  ruin  of 
her  reputation   almost    exceeds  computation.     Every 
person's  happiness  depends  in  part  upon  the  respect 
and  reception  which  they  meet  with  in  the  world; 
and  it  is  no  inconsiderable  mortification  even  to  the 
firmest  tempers,  to  be  rejected  from  the  society  of  their 
equals,  or  received   there  with  neglect  and  disdain. 
But  this  is  not  all,  nor  the  worst.     By  a  rule  of  life, 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  blame,  and  which  it  is  impos- 
sible to  alter,  a  woman  loses  with  her  chastity  the 
chance  of  marrying  at  all,  or  in  any  manner  equal  to 
the  hopes  she  had  been  accustomed  to  entertain.  Now 
marriage,  whatever  it  be  to  a  man,  is  that  from  which 
every  woman  expects  her  chief  happiness.     And  this  is 
still  Ynore  true  in  low  life,  of  which  condition  the  wo- 
men are  who  are  most  exposed  to  solicitations  of  this 
sort.      Add  to  this,   that  where  a  woman's  mainte- 
nance  depends  upon  her  character  (as  it  does,  in  a 
great  measure,  with  those  who  are  to  support  them- 
selves by  service,)  little  sometimes  is  left  to  the  for- 
saken sufferer,  but  to  starve  for  want  of  employment, 
or  to  have  recourse  to  prostitution  for  food  and  rai- 
ment. 

3.  As  a  woman  collects  her  virtue   into  this   point, 
the  loss  of  her  chastity  is  generally  the  destruction  of 
her  moral  principle  ;  and  this  consequence  is   to   be 
apprehended,  whether  the  criminal  intercourse  be  dis- 
covered or  not. 

2.  The  injury  to  the  family  may  be  understood  by 
the  application  of  that  infallible  rule,  "of  doing  to 
others  what  we  would  that  others  should  do  untous.'r 


188  ADULTERY. 

Let  a  father  or  a  brother  say,  for  what  consideration 
they  would  suffer  this  injury  to  a  daughter  or  a  sister: 
and  whether  any,  or  even  a  total  loss  of  fortune,  could 
create  equal  affliction  and  distress.  And  when  they 
reflect  upon  this,  let  them  distinguish,  if  they  can,  be- 
tween a  roSbery  committed  upon  their  property  by 
fraud  or  forgery,  and  the  ruin  of  their  happiness  by  the 
treachery  of  a  seducer. 

3.  The  public  at  large  lose  the  benefit  of  the  wo- 
man's service  in  her  proper  place  and  destination, 
as  a  wife  and  parent.  This,  to  the  whole  community, 
may  be  little;  but  it  is  often  more  than  all  the  good 
which  the  seducer  does  to  the  community  can  recom- 
pense. Moreover,  prostitution  is  supplied  by  seduc- 
tion; and  in  proportion  to  the  danger  there  is  of  the 
woman's  betaking  herself,  after  her  first  sacrifice,  to  a 
life  of  public  lewdness,  the  seducer  is  answerable  for 
the  multiplied  evils  to  which  his  crime  gives  birth. 

Upon  the  whole  if  we  pursue  the  effects  of  seduc- 
tion through  the  complicated  misery  which  it  occa- 
sions, and  if  it  be  right  to  estimate  crimes  by  the  mis- 
chief they  knowingly  produce,  it  will  appear  some- 
thing more  than  mere  invective  to  assert,  that  not 
one  half  of  the  crimes  for  which  men  suffer  death  by 
the  laws  of  England  are  so  flagitious  as  this.* 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ADULTERY. 

A  NEW  sufferer  is  introduced, — the  injured  husband, 
who  receives  a  wound  in  his  sensibility  and  affections, 
the  most  painful  and  incurable  that  human  nature 

*  Yet  the  law  has  provided  no  punishment  for  this  offence 
fceyond  a  pecuniary  satisfaction  to  the  injured  family ;  and 
this  can  only  be  come  at  by  one  of  the  quaintest  fictions  in 
the  world — by  the  father's  bringing  his  action  against  the 
eeducer,  for  the  loss  of  his  daughter's  service,  during  her 
pregnancy  and  nurturing. 


ADULTERY.  189 

knows.  In  all  other  respects,  adultery,  on  the  part  of 
the  man  who  solicits  the  chastity  of  a  married  woman, 
includes  the  crime  of  seduction,  and  is  attended  with 
the  same  mischief. 

The  infidelity  of  the  woman  is  aggravated  by  cruelty 
to  her  children,  who  are  generally  involved  in  their 
parents'  shame,  and  always  made  unhappy  by  their 
quarrel. 

If  it  be  said  that  these  consequences  are  charge- 
able not  so  much  upon  the  crime  as  the  discovery; 
we  answer,  first,  that  the  crime  could  not  be  disco- 
vered unless  it  were  committed,  and  that  the  commis- 
sion is  never  secure  from  discovery;  and  secondly, 
that  if  we  excuse  adulterous  connexions,  whenever 
they  can  hope  to  escape  detection,  which  is  the  con- 
clusion to  which  this  argument  conducts  us,  we  leave 
the  husband  no  other  security  for  hrs  wife's  chastity 
than  in  her  want  of  opportunity  or  temptation;  which 
would  probably  either  deter  men  from  marrying,  01 
render  marriage  a  state  of  such  jealousy  and  alarm  to 
the  husbana,  as  must  end  in  the  slavery  and  confine 
ment  of  the  wife 

The  vow,  by  which  married  persons  mutually  en- 
gage their  fidelity,  "  is  witnessed  before  God,"  and 
accompanied  with  circumstances  of  solemnity  and  re- 
ligion, which  approach  the  nature  of  an  oath.  The 
married  offender  therefore  incurs  a  crime  little  short 
of  perjury,  and  the  seduction  of  a  married  woman  is 
little  less  than  subornation  of  perjury; — and  this 
guilt  is  independent  of  the  discovery. 

All  behaviour  which  is  designed,  or  which  know- 
ingly tends  to  captivate  the  affection  of  a  married  wo- 
man, is  a  barbarous  intrusion  upon  the  peace  and  vir- 
tue of  a  family,  though  it  fall  short  of  adultery. 

The  usual  and  only  apology  for  adultery  is  the  prior 
transgression  of  the  other  party.  There  are  degrees, 
no  doubt,  in  this,  as  in  other  crimes;  and  so  far  as 
the  bad  effects  of  adultery  are  anticipated  by  the 
conduct  of  the  husband  or  wife  who  offends  first,  the 
guilt  of  the  second  offender  is  less.  But  this  falls 
very  far  short  of  a  justification;  unless  it  could  be 
shown  that  the  obligation  of  tho  marriage  vow  de- 


J90  ADUL.TERT 

pends  upon  the  condition  of  reciprocal  fidelity;  for 
which  construction  there  appears  no  foundation  either 
in  expediency,  or  in  the  terms  of  the  promise,  or  in 
the  design  of  the  legislature  which  prescribed  the 
marriage  rite.  Moreover,  the  rule  contended  for  by 
this  plea  has  a  manifest  tendency  to  multiply  the  of- 
fence, but  none  to  reclaim  the  offender. 

The  way  of  considering  the  offence  of  one  party  as 
provocation  to  the  other,  and  the  other  as  only  rg- 
tafiating  the  injury  by  repeating  the  crime,  is  a  child- 
ish triHing  with  words. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,"  was  an  inter- 
dict delivered  by  God  himself.  By  the  Jewish  law, 
adultery  was  capital  to  both  parties  in  the  crime: 
"  Even  he  that  committeth  adultery  with  his  neigh- 
bour's wife,  the  adulterer  arid  adulteress  shall  surely 
be  put  to  death."  Levit.  xx.  10.  Which  passages 
prove  that  the  Divine  Legislator  placed  a  great  dif- 
ference between  adultery  and  fornication.  And  with 
this  agree  the  Christian  Scriptures;  for,  in  almost  all 
the  catalogues  they  have  left  us  of  crimes  and  crimi- 
nals, they  enumerate  "  fornication,  adultery,  whore- 
mongers, adulterers"  (Matthew,  xv.  19.  1  Cor.  vi.  9. 
Gal.  v.  9.  Heb.  xiii.  4;)  by  which  mention  of  both, 
they  show  that  they  did  not  consider  them  as  the 
same;  but  that  the  crime  of  adultery  was,  in  their  ap- 
prehension, distinct  from  and  accumulated  upon  that 
of  fornication. 

The  history  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  re- 
corded in  the  eighth  chapter  of  St.  John's  Gospel, 
has  been  thought  by  some  to  give  countenance  to 
that  crime.  As  Christ  told  the  woman,  "  Neither  do 
I  condemn  thee,"  we  must  believe,  it  is  said,  that  he 
deemed  her  conduct  either  not  criminal,  or  not  a 
crime,  however,  of  the  heinous  nature  which  we  re 
present  it  to  be.  A  more  attentive  examination  of 
the  case  will,  I  think,  convince  us,  that  from  it  no- 
thing can  be  concluded  as  to  Christ's  opinion  concern- 
ing adultery,  either  one  way  or  other.  This  transac- 
tion is  thus  related:  "Early  in  the  morning  Jesus 
came  again  into  the  temple,  and  all  the  people  came 
unto  him:  and  he  sat  down  and  taught  them.  And 


ADULTERY.  191 

the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  brought  unto  him  a  woman 
taken  in  adultery;  and  when  they  had  set  her  in  the 
midst,  they  say  unto  him,  Master,  this  woman  was 
taken  in  adultery,  in  the  very  act:  now  Moses,  in 
the  law,  commanded  that  such  should  be  stoned;  but 
what  sayest  thou  ?  This  they  said  tempting  him,  that 
they  might  have  to  accuse  him.  But  Jesus  stooped 
down,  and  with  his  finger  wrote  on  the  ground,  as 
though  he  heard  them  not.  So  when  they  continued 
asking  him,  he  lift  up  himself,  and  said  unto  them, 
He  that  is  without  sin  amongst  you,  let  him  first  cast 
a  stone  at  her;  and  again  he  stooped  down,  and  wrote 
on  the  ground:  and  they  which  heard  it,  being  con- 
victed by  their  own  conscience,  went  out  one  by  one, 
beginning  at  the  eldest,  even  unto  the  last;  and  Jesus 
was  left  alone,  and  the  woman  standing  in  the  midst. 
When  Jesus  had  lift  up  himself,  and  saw  none  but  the 
woman,  he  said  unto  her,  Woman,  where  are  those 
thine  accusers  ?  hath  no  man  condemned  thee  ?  She 
said  unto  him,  No  man,  Lord.  And  he  said  unto  her, 
Neither  do  I  condemn  thee  ;  go,  and  sin  no  more." 

"  This  they  said  tempting  him,  that  they  might  have 
to  accuse  him;"  to  draw  him,  that  is,  into  an  exercise 
of  judicial  authority,  that  they  might  have  to  accuse 
him  before  the  Roman  governor,  of  usurping  or  inter- 
meddling with  the  civil  government.  This  was  their 
design;  and  Christ's  behaviour  throughout  the  whole 
affair  proceeded  from  a  knowledge  of  this  design,  and 
a  determination  to  defeat  it.  He  gives  them  at  first  a 
cold  and  sullen  reception,  well  suited  to  the  insidious 
intention  with  which  they  came:  "  He  stooped  down, 
and  with  his  finger  wrote  on  the  ground,  as  though  he 
heard  them  not."  "When  they  continued  asking 
him,"  when  they  teased  him  to  speak,  he  dismissed 
them  with  a  rebuke,  which  the  impertinent  malice  of 
their  errand,  as  well  as  the  sacred  character  of  many  of 
them,  deserved:  "  He  that  is  without  sin  (that  is, 
this  sin)  among  you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her." 
This  had  its  effect.  Stung  with  the  reproof,  and  disap- 
pointed of  their  aim,  they  stole  away  one  by  one,  and 
left  Jesus  and  the  woman  alone.  And  then  follows  the 
conversation  which  is  the  part  of  the  narrative  most 


192  INCEST. 

material  to  our  present  subject.  "  Jesus  said  unto  her, 
Woman,  where  are  those  thine  accusers  ?  hath  no 
man  condemned  thee  ?  She  said,  No  man,  Lord.  And 
Jesus  said  unto  her,  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee ;  go, 
and  sin  no  more."  Now  when  Christ  asked  the  wo- 
man, "  Hath  no  man  condemned  thee  ?"  he  certain- 
ly spoke,  and  was  understood  by  the  woman  to  speak 
of  a  legal  and  judicial  condemnation;  otherwise,  her 
answer,  "  No  man,  Lord,"  was  not  true.  In  every 
other  sense  of  condemnation,  as  blame,  censure,  re- 
prqpf,  private  judgment,  and  the  like,  many  had  con- 
demned her;  all  those  indeed  who  brought  her  to 
Jesus.  If  then  a  judicial  sentence  was  what  Christ 
meant  by  condemning  in  the  question,  the  common 
use  of  language  requires  us  to  suppose  that  he  meant 
the  same  in  his  reply;  *'  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee," 
i.  e.  I  pretend  to  no  judicial  character  or  authority 
over  thee;  it  is  no  office  or  business  of  mine  to  pro- 
nounce or  execute  the  sentence  of  the  law. 

When  Christ  adds,  "  Go,  and  sin  no  more,"  he  in 
effect  tells  her,  that  she  had  sinned  already:  but  as 
to  the  degree  or  quality  of  the  sin,  or  Christ's  opinion 
concerning  it,  nothing  is  declared,  or  can  be  inferred, 
either  way. 

Adultery,  which  was  punished  with  death  during 
the  Usurpation,  is  now  regarded  by  the  law  of  Eng- 
land only  as  a  civil  injury;  for  which  the  imperfect 
satisfaction  that  money  can  afford  may  be  recovered 
by  the  husband. 


CHAPTER  V. 


INCEST. 


IN  order  to  preserve  chastity  in  families,  and  be- 
tween persons  of  different  sexes,  brought  up  and  living 
together  in  a  state  of  unreserved  intimacy,  it  is  neces- 
sary by  every  method  possible  to  inculcate  an  abhor- 
rence of  incestuous  conjunctions >  which  abhorrence 


INCEST.  198 

can  only  be  upholdcnby  the  absolute  reprobation  of  all 
commerce  of  the  sexes  between  near  relations.  Upon 
this  principle,  the  marriage  as  well  as  other  cohabi- 
tations of  brothers  and  sisters,  of  lineal  kindred,  and 
of  all  who  usually  live  in  the  same  family,  may  be 
said  to  be  forbidden  by  the  law  of  nature. 

Restrictions  which  extend  to  remoter  degrees  of 
kindred  than  what  this  reason  makes  it  necessary  to 
prohibit  from  intermarriage,  are  founded  in  the  autho- 
rity of  the  positive  law  which  ordains  them,  and  can 
only  be  justified  by  their  tendency  to  diffuse  wealth, 
to  connect  families,  or  to  promote  some  political  ad- 
vantage. 

The  Levitical  law,  which  is  received  in  this  coun- 
try, and  from  which  the  rule  of  the  Roman  law  dif- 
fers very  little,  prohibits*  marriage  between  relations, 
within  three  degrees  of  kindred;  computing  the  ge- 
nerations, not  from,  but  through  the  common  ances- 
tor, and  accounting  affinity  the  same  as  consangui- 
nity. The  issue,  however,  of  such  marriages  are  not 
bastardized,  unless  the  parents  be  divorced  during 
their  lifetime. 

The  Egyptians  are  said  to  have  allowed  of  the  mar- 
riage of  brothers  and  sisters.  Amongst  the  Athe- 
nians a  very  singular  regulation  prevailed;  brothers 
and  sisters  of  the  half-blood,  if  related  by  the  father's 
side,  might  marry;  if  by  the  mother's  side,  they  were 
prohibited  from  marrying.  The  same  custom  also 
probably  obtained  in  Chaldea  so  early  as  the  age  in 
which  Abraham  left  it;  for  he  and  Sarah  his  wife 
stood  in  this  relation  to  each  other:  "  And  yet,  in- 
deed, she  is  my  sister;  she  is  the  daughter  of  my  fa- 
ther, but  not  of  my  mother;  and  she  became  my  wife." 
Gen.  xx.  12. 

*  The  Roman  law  continued  the  prohibition  io  the  descen- 
dants of  brothers  and  sisters  without  limits.  In  the  Leviti- 
cal and  English  law  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  a  man  from 
marrying  his  great-neice. 

VOL.    I.  17 


194  POLYGAMY. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

POLYGAMY. 

THE  equality*  in  the  number  f  males  and  females 
born  into  the  world,  intimates  e  intention  of  God, 
that  one  woman  should  be  assigned  to  one  man;  for, 
if  to  one  man  be  allowed  exclusive  right  to  five  or 
more  women,  four  or  more  men  must  be  deprived  of 
the  exclusive  possession  of  any;  which  could  never  be 
the  order  intended. 

It  seems  also  a  significant  indication  of  the  Divin 
will,  that  he  at  first  created  only  one  woman  to  one 
man.  Had  God  intended  polygamy  for  the  species, 
it  is  probable  he  would  have  begun  with  it;  especial- 
ly as,  by  giving  to  Adam  more  wives  than  one,  the 
multiplication  of  the  human  race  would  have  proceed- 
ed with  a  quicker  progress. 

Polygamy  not  only  violates  the  constitution  of  na- 
ture, and  the  apparent  design  of  the  Deity,  but  pro- 
duces to  the  parties  themselves,  and  to  the  public,  the 
following  bad  effects:  contests  and  jealousies  amongst 
the  wives  of  the  same  husband;  distracted  affections, 
or  the  loss  of  all  affection,  in  the  husband  himself:  a 
voluptuousness  in  the  rich  which  dissolves  the  vigour 
of  their  intellectual  as  well  as  active  faculties,  pro- 
ducing that  indolence  and  imbecility  both  of  mind 
and  body,  which  have  long  characterized  the  nations 
of  the  East;  the  abasement  of  one  half  of  the  human 
species,  who,  in  countries  where  polygamy  obtains^ 
are  degraded  into  mere  instruments  of  physical  plea- 
sure to  the  other  half,  neglect  of  children;  and  the 
manifold  and  sometimes  unnatural  mischiefs  which 
arise  from  a  scarcity  of  women.  To  compensate  for 
these  evils,  polygamy  does  not  offer  a  single  advan- 


*  This  equality  is  not  exact.  The  number  of  male  infants 
exceeds  that  ot  females  in  the  proportion  of  nineteen  to  eigh- 
teen, or  thereabouts;  which  excess  provides  for  the  greater 
consumption  of  males  by  war,  seafaring,  and  oilier  dangerous 
or  unhealthy  occupations. 


POLYGAMY.  195 

tage.  In  the  article  of  population,  which  it  has  been 
thought  to  promote,  the  community  gain  nothing:* 
for  the  question  is  not,  whether  one  man  will  have 
more  children  by  five  or  more  wives  than  by  one; 
but  whether  these  ^ive  wives  would  not  bear  the 
same  or  a  greater  n  .  labor  of  children  to  five  separate 
husbands.  And  as  m>  the  care  of  the  children  when 
produced,  and  the  sending  of  them  into  the  world  in 
situations  in  which  they  may  be  likely  to  form  and 
bring  up  families  of  their  own,  upon  which  the  in- 
crease and  succession  of  the  human  species  in  a  great 
degree  depend;  this  is  less  provided  for,  and  less 
practicable,  where  twenty  or  thirty  children  are  to  be 
supported  by  the  attention  and  fortunes  of  one  father, 
than  if  they  were  divided  into  five  or  six  families,  to 
each  of  which  were  assigned  the  industry  and  inherit- 
ance of  two  parents. 

Whether  simultaneous  polygamy  was  permitted  by 
the  law  of  Moses,  seerns  doubtfuhf  but  whether  per- 
mitted or  not,  it  was  certainly  practised  by  the  Jewish 
patriarchs,  both  before  that  law,  and  under  it.  The 
permission,  if  there  was  any,  might  be  like  that  of 


*  Nothing,  I  mean,  compared  with  a  state  in  which  mar- 
riage is  nearly  universal.  Where  marriages  are  less  general, 
and  many  women  unfruitful  from  the  want  of  husbands,  poly- 
gamy might  at  first  add  a  little  to  population ;  and  but  a  lit- 
tle :  for,  as  a  variety  of  wives  would  be  sought  chiefly  from 
temptations  of  voluptuousness,  it  would  rather  increase  the 
demand  for  female  beauty,  than  for  the  sex  at  large.  And 
this  little  would  soon  be  made  less  by  many  deductions.  For, 
first,  as  none  but  the  opulent  can  maintian  a  plurality  of 
wives,  where  polygamy  obtains,  the  rich  indulge  in  it,  while 
the  rest  take  up  with  a  vague  and  barren  incontinency. 
And,  secondly,  women  would  grow  less  jealous  of  their  vir- 
tue, when  they  had  nothing  for  which  to  reserve  it  but  a 
chamber  in  the  haram  ;  when  their  chastity  was  no  longer 
to  be  rewarded  with  the  rights  and  happiness  of  a  wife,  as 
enjoyed  under  the  marriage  of  one  woman  to  one  man. 
These  considerations  may  be  added  to  what  is  mentioned  in 
the  text,  concerning  the  easy  and  early  settlement  of  chil- 
dren in  the  world. 

t  See  Deut.  xvii.  17 ;  xxi.  15. 


196  POLYGAMY. 

divorce,  "  for  the  hardness  of  their  heart;"  in  conde- 
scension to  their  established  indulgences,  rather  than 
from  the  general  rectitude  or  propriety  of  the  thing 
itself.  The  state  of  manners  in  Judea  had  probably 
undergone  a  reformation  in  this  respect  before  the 
time  of  Christ,  for  in  the  New  Testament  we  meet 
with  no  trace  or  mention  of  any  such  practice  being 
tolerated. 

For  which  reason,  and  because  it  was  likewise  forbid- 
den amongst  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  we  cannot  ex- 
pect to  find  any  express  law  upon  the  subject  in  the 
Christian  code.  The  words  of  Christ*  (Matt.  xix.  9) 
may  be  construed  by  an  easy  implication  to  prohibit 
polygamy;  for,  if  "  whoever  putteth  away  his  wife 
and  marrieth  another,  committeth  adultery,"  he  who 
marrieth  another  without  putting  away  the  first,  is  no 
less  guilty  of  adultery:  because  the  adultery  does 
not  consist  in  the  repudiation  of  the  first  wife  (for, 
however  unjust  or  cruel  that  may  be,  it  is  not  adul- 
tery,) but  in  entering  into  a  second  marriage  during 
the  legal  existence  and  obligation  of  the  first.  The 
several  passages  in  St.  Paul's  writings,  which  speak 
of  marriage,  always  suppose  it  to  signify  the  union  of 
one  man  with  one  woman.  Upon  this  supposition  he 
argues,  Rom.  vii.  1,  2,  3:  "  Know  ye  not,  brethren 
(for  I  speak  to  them  that  know  the  law,)  how  that  the 
law  hath  dominion  over  a  man,  as  long  as  he  liveth  ? 
For  the  woman  which  hath  a  husband,  is  bound  by 
the  law  to  her  husband  so  long  as  he  liveth;  but  if 
the  husband  be  dead,  she  is  loosed  from  the  law  of 
her  husband:  so  then,  if  while  her  husband  liveth 
she  be  married  to  another  man,  she  shall  be  called  an 
adulteress."  When  the  same  apostle  permits  mar- 
riage to  his  Corinthian  converts  (which,  "  for  the  pre- 
sent distress,"  he  judges  to  be  inconvenient,)  he 
restrains  the  permission  to  the  marriage  of  one  hus- 
band with  one  wife: — "It  is  good  for  a  man  not  to 
touch  a  woman:  nevertheless,  to  avoid  fornication, 


*  "  I  say  unto  you,  Whosoever  shall  put 
except  it  be  for  fornication,  and  shall  marr 
naitteth  adultery." 


.   away  his  wife- 
ry  another,  coro- 


POLYGAMY.  197 

let  every  man  have  his  own  wife,  and  let  every  woman 
have  her  own  husband." 

The  manners  of  different  countries  have  varied  in 
nothing  more  than  in  their  domestic  constitutions. 
Less  polished  and  more  luxurious  nations  have  either 
not  perceived  the  bad  effects  of  polygamy,  or,  if  they 
did  perceive  them,  they  who,  in  such  countries,  pos- 
sessed the  power  of  reforming  the  laws  have  been 
unwilling  to  resign  their  own  gratifications.  Poly- 
gamy is  retained  at  this  day  among  the  Turks,  and 
throughout  every  part  of  Asia  in  which  Christianity 
is  not  professed.  In  Christian  countries  it  is  univer- 
sally prohibited.  In  Sweden  it  is  punished  with  death. 
In  England,  besides  the  nullity  of  the  second  mar- 
riage, it  subjects  the  offender  to  transportation  or  im- 
prisonment and  branding,  for  the  first  offence,  and 
to  capital  punishment  for  the  second.  And  whatever 
may  be  said  in  behalf  of  polygamy  when  it  is  autho- 
rized by  the  law  of  the  land,  the  marriage  of  a  second 
wife  during  the  lifetime  of  the  first,  in  countries  where 
such  a  second  marriage  is  void,  must  be  ranked  with 
the  most  dangerous  and  cruel  of  those  frauds,  by 
which  a  woman  is  cheated  out  of  her  fortune,  her 
person,  and  her  happiness. 

The  ancient  Medes  compelled  their  citizens,  in  one 
canton,  to  take  seven  wives;  in  another,  each  woman 
to  receive  five  husbands:  according  as  war  had  made, 
in  one  quarter  of  their  country,  an  extraordinary 
havock  among  the  men,  or  the  women  had  been  car- 
ried away  by  an  enemy  from  another.  This  regula- 
tion, so  far  as  it  was  adapted  to  the  proportion  which 
subsisted  between  the  number  of  males  and  females, 
was  founded  in  the  reason  upon  which  the  most  im- 
proved nations  of  Europe  proceed  at  present. 

Caesar  found  amongst  the  inhabitants  of  this  island 
a  species  of  polygamy,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  which 
was  perfectly  singular.  Uxores,  says  he,  habent  deni 
duodenique  inter  se  communes  ;  et  maxime  fratres 
cum  fratribus  parentesque  cum  liber  is  :  sed  si  qtn 
sint  ex  his  nati,  eorum  habentur  liberi,  quff  primum 
virgo  qu&que  deducta  est. 

VOL.  i.  17* 


CHAPTER  VII. 


BY  divorce,  I  mean  the  dissolution  of  the  marriage 
contract,  by  the  act,  and  at  the  will,  of  the  husband. 

This  power  was  allowed  to  the  husband,  among  the 
Jews,  the  Greeks,  and  latter  Romans;  and  is  at  this 
day  exercised  by  the  Turks  and  Persians. 

The  congruity  of  such  a  right  with  the  law  of  na- 
ture is  the  question  before  us. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  manifestly  inconsistent 
with  the  duty  which  the  parents  owe  to  their  children; 
which  duty  can  never  be  so  well  fulfilled  as  by  their 
cohabitation  and  united  care.  It  is  also  incompatible 
with  the  right  which  the  mother  possesses,  as  well  as 
the  father,  to  the  gratitude  of  her  children  and  the 
comfort  of  their  society;  of  both  which  she  is  almost 
necessarily  deprived,  by  her  dismission  from  her  hus- 
band's family. 

Where  this  objection  does  not  interfere,  I  know  of 
no  principle  of  the  law  of  nature  applicable  to  the 
question,  beside  that  of  general  expediency. 

For,  if  we  say  that  arbitrary  divorces  are  excluded 
by  the  terms  of  the  marriage  contract,  it  may  be  an- 
swered, that  the  contract  might  be  so  framed  as  to 
admit  of  this  condition. 

If  we  argue,  with  some  moralists,  that  the  obliga- 
tion of  a  contract  naturally  continues,  so  long  as  the 
purpose  which  the  contracting  parties  had  in  view  re- 
quires its  continuance;  it  will  be  difficult  to  show 
what  purpose  of  the  contract  (the  care  of  children 
excepted)  should  confine  a  man  to  a  woman,  from 
whom  he  seeks  to  be  loose. 

If  we  contend,  with  others,  that  a  contract  cannot, 
by  the  law  of  nature,  be  dissolved,  unless  the  parties 
be  replaced  in  the  situation  which  each  possessed 
before  the  contract  was  entered  into;  we  shall  be 
called  upon  to  prove  this  to  be  a  universal  or  indis- 
pensable property  of  contracts. 

I  confess  myself  unable  to  assign  any  circumstance 


DIVORCE.  199 

in  the  marriage  contract,  which  essentially  distin- 
guishes it  from  other  contracts,  or  which  proves  that 
it  contains,  what  many  have  ascribed  to  it,  a  natural 
incapacity  of  being  dissolved  by  the  consent  of  the 
parties,  at  the  option  of  one  of  them,  or  either  of  them. 
But  if  we  trace  the  effects  of  such  a  rule  upon  the 
general  happiness  of  married  life,  we  shall  perceive 
reasons  of  expediency,  that  abundantly  justify  the 
policy  of  those  laws  which  refuse  to  the  husband  the 
power  of  divorce,  or  restrain  it  to  a  few  extreme  and 
specific  provocations:  and  our  principles  teach  us  to 
pronounce  that  to  be  contrary  to  the  ]aw  of  nature, 
which  can  be  proved  to  be  detrimental  to  the  common 
happiness  of  the  human  species. 

A  lawgiver,  whose  counsels  are  directed  by  views 
of  general  utility,  and  obstructed  by  no  local  impedi- 
ment, would  make  the  marriage  contract  indissoluble 
during  the  joint  lives  of  the  parties,  for  the  sake  of 
the  following  advantages: — 

i.  Because  this  tends  to  preserve  peace  and  con- 
cord between  married  persons,  by  perpetuating  their 
common  interest,  and  by  inducing  a  necessity  of  mu- 
tual compliance. 

There  is  great  weight  and  substance  in  both  these 
considerations.  An  earlier  termination- of  the  union 
would  produce  a  separate  interest.  The  wife  would 
naturally  look  forward  to  the  dissolution  of  the  part- 
nership, and  endeavour  to  draw  to  herself  a  fund 
against  the  time  when  she  was  no  longer  to  have 
access  to  the  same  resources.  This  would  beget  pe- 
culation on  one  side,  and  mistrust  on  the  other;  evils 
which  at  present  very  little  disturb  the  confidence  of 
a  married  life.  The  second  effect  of  making  the 
union  determinable  only  by  death,  is  not  less  bene- 
ficial. It  necessarily  happens  that  adverse  tempers, 
habits,  and  tastes  oftentimes  meet  in  marriage.  In 
\vhich  case,  each  party  must  take  pains  to  give  up 
what  offends,  and  practise  what  may  gratify  the  other. 
A  man  and  woman  in  love  with  each  other  do  this 
insensibly:  but  love  is  neither  general  nor  durable; 
and  where  that  is  wanting,  no  lessons  of  duty,  no 
delicacy  of  sentiment  will  go  half  so  far  with  the 


200  DIVORCE. 

generality  of  mankind  and  womankind,  as  this  one 
intelligible  reflection,  that  they  must  each  make  the 
best  of  their  bargain;  and  that  seeing  they  must 
either  both  be  miserable,  or  both  share  in  the  same 
happiness,  neither  can  find  their  own  comfort,  but  in 
promoting  the  pleasure  of  the  other.  These  compli- 
ances, though  at  first  extorted  by  necessity,  become 
m  time  easy  and  mutual;  and,  though  less  endearing 
than  assiduities  which  take  their  rise  from  affection, 
generally  procure  to  the  married  pair  a  repose  and 
satisfaction  sufficient  for  their  happiness. 

2.  Becase  new  objects  of  desire  would  be  conti- 
nually sought  after,  if  men  could,  at  will,  be  released 
from  their  subsisting  engagements.  Suppose  the  hus- 
band to  have  once  preferred  his  wife  to  all  other  wo- 
men, the  duration  of  this  preference  cannot  be  trusted 
to.  Possession  makes  a  great  difference:  and  there 
is  no  other  security  against  the  invitations  of  novelty, 
than  the  known  impossibility  of  obtaining  the  object. 
Did  the  cause  which  brings  the  sexes  together,  hold 
them  together  by  the  same  force  with  which  it  first 
attracted  them  to  each  other;  or  could  the  woman  be 
restored  to  her  personal  integrity,  and  to  all  the  ad 
vantages  of  her  virgin  estate;  the  power  of  divorce 
might  be  deposited  in  the  hands  of  the  husband,  with 
less  danger  of  abuse  or  inconveniency.  But  consti 
luted  as  mankind  are,  and  injured  as  the  repudiated 
wife  generally  must  be,  it  is  necessary  to  add  a  sta- 
bility to  the  condition  of  married  women,  more  secure 
than  the  continuance  of  their  husbands'  affection;  and 
to  supply  to  both  sides,  by  a  sense  of  duty  and  of  ob- 
ligation, what  satioty  has  impaired  of  passion  and  of 
personal  attachment.  Upon  the  whole,  the  power  of 
divorce  is  evidently  and  greatly  to  the  disadvantage 
of  the  woman:  and  the  only  question  appears  to  be, 
whether  the  real  and  permanent  happiness  of  one  half 
of  the  species  should  be  surrendered  to  the  caprice 
and  voluptuousness  of  the  other  ? 

We  have  considered  divorces  as  depending  upon 
the  will  of  the  husband,  because  that  is  the  way  in 
which  they  have  actually  obtained  in  many  parts  of 
the  world;  but  the  same  objections  apply,  in  a  great 


DIVORCE.  201 

degree,  to  divorces  by  mutual  consent;  especially 
when  we  consider  the  indelicate  situation  and  small 
prospect  of  happiness,  which  remains  to  the  party 
who  opposed  his  or  her  dissent  to  the  liberty  and  de- 
sire of  the  other. 

The  law  of  nature  admits  of  an  exception  in  favour 
of  the  injured  party,  in  cases  of  adultery,  of  obstinate 
desertion,  of  attempts  upon  life,  of  outrageous  cruelty, 
of  incurable  madness,  and  perhaps  of  personal  imbe- 
cility; but  by  no  means  indulges  the  same  privilege 
to  mere  dislike,  to  opposition  of  humours  and  inclina- 
tions, to  contrariety  of  taste  and  temper,  to  complaints 
of  coldness,  neglect,  severity,  peevishness,  jealousy: 
not  that  these  reasons  are  trivial,  but  because  such  ob- 
jections may  always  be  alleged,  and  are  impossible  by 
testimony  to  be  ascertained;  so  that  to  allow  implicit 
credit  to  them,  and  to  dissolve  marriages,  whenever 
either  party  thought  fit  to  pretend  them,  would  lead 
in  its  effect  to  all  the  licentiousness  of  arbitrary  di- 
vorces. 

Milton's  story  is  well  known.  Upon  a  quarrel  with 
his  wife,  he  paid  his  addresses  to  another  woman,  and 
set  forth  a  public  vindication  of  his  conduct,  by  at- 
tempting to  prove,  that  confirmed  dislike  was  as  just 
a  foundation  for  dissolving  the  marriage  contract,  as 
adultery;  to  which  position,  and  to  all  the  arguments 
by  which  it  can  be  supported,  the  above  consideration 
affords  a  sufficient  answer.  And  if  a  married  pair, 
in  actual  and  irreconcileable  discord,  complain  that 
their  happiness  would  be  better  consulted,  by  per- 
mitting them  to  determine  a  connexion  which  is  be- 
come odious  to  both,  it  may  be  told  them,  that  the 
same  permission,  as  a  general  rule,  would  produce 
libertinism,  dissension,  and  misery  amongst  thousands 
who  are  now  virtuous,  and  quiet,  and  happy,  in  their 
condition:  and  it  ought  to  satisfy  them  to  reflect, 
that  when  their  happiness  is  sacrificed  to  the  operation 
of  an  unrelenting  rule,  it  is  sacrificed  to  the  happiness 
of  the  community. 

The  scriptures  seem  to  have  drawn  the  obligation 
tighter  than  the  law  of  nature  left  it.  "  Whosoever," 
saith  Christ,  "  shall  put  away  his  wife,  except  it  bQ 


202  DIVORCE. 

for  fornication,  and  shall  marry  another,  committeth 
adultery;  and  whoso  marrieth  her  which  is  put  away, 
doth  commit  adultery."  Matt.  xix.  9.  The  law  of 
Moses,  for  reasons  of  local 'expediency,  permitted  the 
Jewish  husband  to  put  away  his  wife;  but  whether 
for  every  cause,  or  for  what  causes,  appears  to  have 
been  controverted  amongst  the  interpreters  of  those 
times.  Christ,  the  precepts  of  whose  religion  were 
calculated  for  more  general  use  and  observation,  re- 
vpkes  the  permission  (as  given  to  the  Jews  "  for  the 
hardness  of  their  hearts,")  and  promulges  a  law  which 
was  thenceforward  to  confine  divorces  to  the  single 
case  of  adultery  in  the  wife.  And  I  see  no  sufficient 
reason  to  depart  from  the  plain  and  strict  meaning  of 
Christ's  words.  The  rule  was  new.  It  both  sur- 
prised and  offended  his  disciples;  yet  Christ  added 
nothing  to  relax  or  explain  it. 

Inferior  causes  may  justify  the  separation  of  hus- 
band and  wife,  although  they  will  not  authorize  such 
a  dissolution  of  the  marriage  contract,  as  would  leave 
either  party  at  liberty  to  marry  again:  for  it  is  that 
liberty,  in  which  the  danger  and  mischief  of  divorces 
principally  consist.  If  the  care  of  children  does  not 
require  that  they  should  live  together,  and  it  is  be- 
come, in  the  serious  judgment  of  both,  necessary  for 
their  mutual  happiness  that  they  should  separate,  let. 
them  separate  by  consent.  Nevertheless,  this  neces- 
sity can  hardly  exist,  without  guilt  and  misconduct  on 
one  side  or  on  both.  Moreover,  cruelty,  ill  usage, 
extreme  violence  or  moroseness  of  temper,  or  other 
great  and  continued  provocations,  make  it  lawful  for 
the  party  aggrieved  to  withdraw  from  the  society  of 
the  offender  without  his  or  her  consent.  The  law 
which  imposes  the  marriage  vow,  whereby  the  parties 
promise  to  "  keep  to  each  other,"  or  in  other  words, 
to  live  together,  must  be  understood  to  impose  it  with 
a  silent  reservation  of  these  cases;  because  the  same 
law  has  constituted  a  judicial  relief  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  husband,  by  the  divorce  a  mensa  et  toro,  and 
by  the  provision  which  it  makes  for  the  separate  main- 
tenance of  the  injured  wife.  St.  Paul  likewise  distin 
guishes  between  a  wife's  merely  separating  herself 


DIVORCE.  203 

irom  the  family  of  her  husband,  and  her  marrying 
again: — "  Let  not  the  wife  depart  from  her  husband; 
but  and  if  she  do  depart,  let  her  remain  unmarried.'1 
The  law  of  this  country,  in  conformity  to  our  Sa- 
viour's injunction,  confines  the  dissolution  of  the  mar 
riage  contract  to  the  single  case  of  adultery  in  the 
wife;  and  a  divorce  even  in  that  case  can  only  be 
brought  about  by  the  operation  of  an  act  of  parlia- 
ment, founded  upon  a  previous  sentence  in  the  eccle- 
siastical court,  and  a  verdict  against  the  adulterer  at 
common  law:  which  proceedings  taken  together  com- 
pose as  complete  an  investigation  of  the  complaint  as 
a  cause  can  receive.  It  has  late*y  been  proposed  to 
the  legislature  to  annex  a  clause  to  these  acts,  re- 
straining the  offending  party  from  marrying  with  the 
companion  of  her  crime,  who,  by  the  course  of  pro- 
ceeding, is  always  known  and  convicted:  for  there  is 
reason  to  fear,  that  adulterous  connexions  are  often 
formed  with  the  prospect  of  bringing  them  to  this 
conclusion;  at  least,  when  the  seducer  has  once  cap- 
tivated the  affection  of  a  married  woman,  he  may  avail 
himself  of  this  tempting  argument  to  subdue  her 
scruples,  and  complete  his  victory;  and  the  legisla- 
ture, as  the  business  is  managed  at  present,  assists  by 
its  interposition  the  criminal  design  of  the  offenders, 
and  confers  a  privilege  where  it  ought  to  inflict  a 
punishment.  The  proposal  deserved  an  experiment: 
but  something  more  penal  will,  I  apprehend,  be  found 
necessary  to  check  the  progress  of  this  alarming  de- 
pravity. Whether  a  law  might  not  be  framed,  direct- 
ing the  fortune  of  the  adulteress  to  descend  as  in  case 
of  her  natural  death ,  reserving,  however,  a  certain 
proportion  of  the  produce  of  it,  by  way  of  annuity, 
for  her  subsistance  (such  annuity,  in  no  case,  to  ex- 
ceed a  fixed  sum,)  and  also  so  far  suspending  the  es- 
tate in  the  hands  of  the  heir  as  to  preserve  the  in- 
heritance to  any  children  she  might  bear  to  a  second 
marriage,  in  case  there  vas  none  to  succeed  in  the 
place  of  their  mother  by  the  first;  whether,  I  say,  such 
a  law  would  not  render  female  virtue  in  higher  life  less 
vincible,  as  well  as  the  seducers  of  that  virtue  less 
urgent  in  their  suit,  we  recommend  to  the  deliberation 


204  DIVORCE. 

of  those  who  are  willing  to  attempt  the  reforma- 
tion of  this  important,  but  most  incorrigible  class 
of  the  community.  A  passion  for  splendour,  for  ex- 
pensive amusements  and  distinctions,  is  commonly 
found  in  that  description  of  women  who  would  become 
the  objects  of  such  a  law,  not  less  inordinate  than 
their  other  appetites.  A  severity  of  the  kind  \ve  pro- 
pose, applies  immediately  to  that  passion.  And  there 
is  no  room  for  any  complaint  of  injustice,  since  the 
provisions  above  stated,  with  others  which  might  be 
contrived,  confine  the  punishment,  so  far  as  it  is  pos- 
sible, to  the  person  of  the  offender;  suffering  the  es- 
tate to  remain  to  the  heir,  or  within  the  family,  of  the 
ancestor  from  whom  it  came,  or  to  attend  the  appoint- 
ments of  his  will. 

Sentences  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  which  release 
the  parties  a  vinculo  matrimonii  by  reason  of  irnpu- 
berty,  frigidity,  consanguinity  within  the  prohibited 
degrees,  prior  marriage,  or  want  of  the  requisite  con- 
sent of  parents  and  guardians,  are  not  dissolutions  of 
the  marriage  contract,  but  judicial  declarations  that 
there  never  was  any  marriage;  such  impediment  sub- 
sisting at  the  time,  as  rendered  the  celebration  of  the 
marriage  rite  a  mere  nullity.  And  the  rite  itself  con- 
tains an  exception  of  these  impediments.  The  man 
and  woman  to  be  married  are  charged,  "  if  they  know 
any  impediment  why  they  may  not  be  lawfully  joined 
together,  to  confess  it;"  and  assured,  "  that  so  many 
as  are  coupled  together,  otherwise  than  God's  word 
doth  allow,  are  not  joined  together  by  God,  neither  is 
their  matrimony  lawful;"  all  which  is  intended  by 
way  of  solemn  notice  to  the  parties,  that  the  vow  they 
are  about  to  make  will  bind  their  consciences  and  au- 
thorize their  cohabitation,  only  upon  the  suppositioi 
that  no  legal  impediment  exists. 


MARRIAGE.  205 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MARRIAGE. 

WHETHER  it  hath  grown  out  of  some  tradition  of 
the  Divine  appointment  of  marriage  in  the  persons  of 
our  first  parents,  or  merely  from  a  design  to  impress 
the  obligation  of  the  marriage  contract  with  a  solem  - 
nity  suited  to  its  importance,  the  marriage  rite,  in  al- 
most all  countries  of  the  world,  has  been  made  a  reli- 
gious ceremony;*  although  marriage,  in  its  own  na- 
ture, and  abstracted  from  the  rules  and  declarations 
which  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures  deliver 
concerning  it,  be  properly  a  civil  contract,  and  noth- 
ing more. 

With  respect  to  one  main  article  in  matrimonial 
alliances,  a  total  alteration  has  taken  place  in  the 
fashion  of  the  world:  the  wife  now  brings  money  to 
her  husband,  whereas  anciently  the  husband  paid 
money  to  the  family  of  the  wife;  as  was  the  case 
among  the  Jewish  patriarchs,  the  Greeks,  and  the 
old  inhabitants  of  Germany.^  This  alteration  has 
proved  of  no  small  advantage  to  the  female  sex:  for 
their  importance  in  point  of  fortune  procures  to  them, 
in  modern  times,  that  assiduity  and  respect,  which 
are  always  wanted  to  compensate  for  the  inferiority  of 
their  strength  but  which  their  personal  attractions 
would  not  aways  secure. 

Our  business  is  with  marriage  as  it  is  established  in 


*  It  was  not,  however,  in  Christian  countries,  required  that 
marriages  should  be  celebrated  in  churches,  till  the  thir- 
teenth century  of  the  Christian  era.  Marriages  in  England, 
during  the  Usurpation,  were  solemnized  before  justices  of 
the  peace  :  but  for  what  purpose  this  novelty  was  introduced, 
except  to  degrade  the  clergy,  does  not  appear. 

t  The  ancient  Assyrians  sold  their  beauties  by  an  annual 
auction.  The  prices  were  applied  by  way  of  portions  to  the 
more  homely.  By  this  contrivance,  all  of  both  sorts  were 
disposed  of  in  marriage. 


206 


MARRIAGE. 


this  country.  And  in  treating  thereof,  it  will  be  ne- 
cessary to  state  the  terms  of  the  marriage  vow,  in 
order  to  discover, — 

1.  What  duties  this  vow  creates. 

2.  What  situation   of  mind,   at  the   time,  is  incon- 
sistent with  it. 

3.  By  what  subsequent  behaviour  it  is  violated. 

The  husband  promises,  on  his  part,  "  to  love,  com- 
fort, honour,  and  keep  his  wife;"  the  wife  on  hers, 
•'  to  obey,  serve,  love,  honour,  and  keep  her  hus- 
band;" in  every  variety  of  health,  fortune,  and  con- 
dition: and  both  stipulate  "  to  forsake  all  others,  and 
to  keep  only  unto  one  another,  so  long  as  they  both 
shall  live."  This  promise  is  called  the  marriage  vow; 
is  witnessed  before  God  and  the  congregation;  ac- 
companied with  prayers  to  Almighty  God  for  his 
blessing  upon  it;  and  attended  with  such  circum- 
stances of  devotion  and  solemnity  as  place  the  obliga- 
tion of  it,  and  the  guilt  of  violating  it,  nearly  upon  the 
same  foundation  with  that  of  oaths. 

The  parties  by  this  vow  engage  their  personal  fide- 
lity expressly  and  specifically;  they  engage  likewise 
to  consult  and  promote  each  other's  happiness:  the 
wife,  moreover,  promises  obedience  to  her  husband. 
Nature  may  have  ma,de  and  left  the  sexes  of  the  hu- 
man species  nearly  equal  in  their  faculties,  and  per- 
fectly so  in  their  rights;  but  to  guard  against  those 
competitions  which  equality,  or  a  contested  superi- 
ority, is  almost  sure  to  produce,  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures enjoin  upon  the  wife  that  obedience  which  she 
here  promises,  and  in  terms  so  peremptory  and  abso- 
lute, that  it  seems  to  extend  to  every  thing  not  crimi- 
nal, or  not  entirely  inconsistent  with  th^  woman's 
happiness.  "Let  the  wife,"  says  St.  Paul,  "be 
subject  to  her  own  husband  in  every  thing." — "  The 
ornament  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit,"  says  the  same 
apostle,  speaking  of  the  duty  of  wives,  "is,  in  the 
bight  of  God,  of  great  price."  No  words  ever  ex- 
pressed the  true  merit  o^the  female  character  so  well 
as  these. 

The  condition  of  human  life  will  not  permit  us  to 
say,  that  no  one  can  conscientiously  marry  who  does 


MARRIAGE.  207 

not  prefer  the  person  at  the  altar  to  all  other  men  or 
women  in  the  world;  but  we  can  have  no  difficulty  in 
pronouncing  (whether  we  respect  the  end  of  the  insti- 
tution, or  the  plain  terms  in  which  the  contract  is 
conceived,)  that  whoever  is  conscious,  at  the  time  of 
his  marriage,  of  such  a  dislike  to  the  woman  he  is 
about  to  marry,  or  of  such  a  subsisting  attachment  to 
some  other  woman,  that  he  cannot  reasonably,  nor 
does  in  fact,  expect  ever  to  entertain  an  affection  for 
his  future  wife,  is  guilty,  when  he  pronounces  the 
marriage  vow,  of  a  direct  and  deliberate  prevarica- 
tion; and  that,  too,  aggravated  by  the  presence  of 
those  ideas  of  religion,  and  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
which  the  place,  the  ritual,  and  the  solemnity  of  the 
occasion,  cannot  fail  of  bringing  to  his  thoughts.  The 
same  likewise  of  the  woman.  This  charge  must  be 
imputed  to  all  who,  from  mercenary  motives,  marry 
the  objects  of  their  aversion  and  disgust;  and  like- 
wise to  those  who  desert,  from  any  motive  whatever, 
the  object  of  their  affection,  and,  whithout  being  able 
to  subdue  that  affection,  marry  another. 

The  crime  of  falsehood  is  also  incurred  by  the  mar 
who  intends,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage,  to  com 
mence,  renew,  or  continue,  a  personal  commerce  witi 
any  other  woman.  And  the  parity  of  reason,  if  a  wife 
be  capable  of  so  much  guilt,  extends  to  her. 

The  marriage  vow  is  violated, 

1.  By  adultery. 

2.  By  any  behaviour  which  knowingly,  renders  the 
life  of  the  other  miserable;  as  desertion,  neglect,  pro- 
digality, drunkenness,  peevishness,  penuriousness,  jea- 
lousy, or   any  levity  of  conduct    which    administers 
occasion  of  jealousy. 

A  late  regulation  in  the  law  of  marriages,  in  fhis 
country,  has  made  the  consent  of  the  father,  if  he  be 
living,  of  the  mother,  if  she  survive  the  father,  and 
remain  unmarried,  or  of  guardians,  if  both  parents 
be  dead,  necessary  to  the  marriage  of  a  person  under 
twenty-one  years  of  age.  By  the  Roman  law,  the 
consent  et  am  et  patris  was  required  so  long  as  they 
lived.  In  France,  the  consent  of  parents  is  necessary 
to  the  marriage  of  sons,  until  they  attain  to  thirty 


208  DUTY    OF  PAREICTS. 

years  of  age;  of  daughters,  until  twenty-five.  In 
Holland,  for  sons  till  twenty-five;  for  daughters,  till 
twenty.  And  this  distinction  between  the  sexes  ap- 
pears to  be  well  founded;  for  a  woman  is  usually  as 
properly  qualified  for  the  domestic  and  inferior  duties 
of  a  wife  or  mother  at  eighteen,  as  a  man  is  for  the 
business  of  the  world,  and  the  more  arduous  care  of 
providing  for  a  family,  at  twenty-one. 

The  constitution  also  of  the  human  species  indicates 
the  same  distinction.* 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF  THE  DUTY  OF  PARENTS. 

THAT  virtue  which  confines  its  beneficence  within 
the  walls  of  a  man's  own  house,  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  consider  as  little  better  than  a  more  refined 
selfishness;  and  yet  it  will  be  confessed,  that  the  sub- 
ject and  matter  of  this  class  of  duties  are  inferior  to 
none  in  utility  and  importance:  and  where,  it  may  be 
asked,  is  virtue  the  most  valuable,  but  where  it  does 
the  most  good  ?  What  duty  is  the  most  obligatory,  but 
that  on  which  the  most  depends?  And  where  have 
we  happiness  and  misery  so  much  in  our  power,  or 
liable  to  be  so  affected  by  our  conduct,  as  in  our  own 
families?  It  will  also  be  acknowledged,  that  the 
good  order  and  happiness  of  the  world  are  better  up- 
holden  whilst  each  man  applies  himself  to  his  own 
concerns,  and  the  care  of  his  own  family,  to  which  he 
is  present,  than  if  every  man,  from  an  excess  of  mis- 
taken generosity,  should  leave  his  own  business  to 
undertake  his  neighbour's,  which  he  must  always 
manage  with  less  knowledge,  conveniency,  and  suc- 


*  Cum  vis  prolem  procreandi  diutius  heereat  in  mare  quam 
m  foemina,  populi  numerus  nequaquam  minuctur,  si  serius 
venerem  coiere  inceperint  viri. 


DUTY  OF   PARENTS.  209 

cess.  If  therefore,  the  low  estimation  of  these  vir- 
tues be  well  founded,  it  must  be  owing,  not  to  their 
inferior  importance,  but  to  some  defect  or  impurity  in 
the  motive.  And  indeed  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  it 
is  in  the  power  of  associations^  to  unite  our  children's 
interest  with  our  own,  as  that  we  shall  often  pursue 
both  from  the  same  motive,  place  both  in  the  same 
object,  and  with  as  little  sense  of  duty  in  one  pursuit 
as  in  the  other.  Where  this  is  the  case,  the  judg- 
ment above  stated  is  not  far  from  the  truth.  And  so 
often  as  we  find  a  solicitous  care  of  a  man's  own 
family,  in  a  total  absence  or  extreme  penury  of  every 
other  virtue,  or  interfering  with  other  duties,  or  direct- 
ing its  operation  solely  to  the  temporal  happiness  of 
the  children,  placing  that  happiness  in  amusement 
and  indulgence  whilst  they  are  young,  or  in  advance 
ment  of  fortune  when  they  grow  up,  there  is  reason  tc 
believe  that  this  is  the  case.  In  this  way,  the  com 
mon  opinion  concerning  these  duties  may  be  account- 
ed for  and  defended.  If  we  look  to  the  subject  of 
them,  we  perceive  them  to  be  indispensable:  If  w 
regard  the  motive,  we  find  tnem  often  not  very  merito- 
rious. Wherefore,  although  a  man  seldom  rises  high 
in  our  esteem  who  has  nothing  to  recommend  him  be- 
side the  care  of  his  own  family,  yet  we  always  con- 
demn the  neglect  of  this  duty  with  the  utmost  seve- 
rity; both  by  reason  of  the  manifest  and  immediate 
mischief  which  we  see  arising  from  this  neglect,  and 
because  it  argues  a  want  not  only  of  parental  aflec- 
tion,  but  of  those  moral  principles  which  ought  to 
come  in  aid  of  that  affection  where  it  is  wanting. 
And  if,  on  the  other  hand,  our  praise  and  esteem  of 
these  duties  be  not  proportioned  to  the  good  they 
produce,  or  to  the  indignation  with  which  we  resent 
the  absence  of  them,  it  is  for  this  reason,  that  virtue 
is  the  most  valuable,  not  where  it  produces  the  most 
good,  but  where  it  is  the  most  wanted:  which  is  not 
the  case  here;  because  its  place  is  often  supplied  by 
instincts,  or  involuntary  associations.  Nevertheless, 
the  offices  of  a  parent  may  be  discharged  from  a  con- 
sciousness of  their  obligation,  as  well  as  other  duties; 
and  a  sense  of  this  obligation  is  sometimes  necessary 
VOL.  i.  18* 


210  DUTY   OF  PARENTS. 

to  assist  the  stimulus  of  parental  affection;  especially 
in  stations  of  life  in  \vhich  the  wants  of  a  family  can- 
not be  supplied  without  the  continual  hard  labour  of 
the  father,  and  without  his  refraining  from  many  indul- 
gences and  recreations  which  unmarried  men  of  like 
condition  are  able  to  purchase.  Where  the  parental 
affection  is  sufficiently  strong,  or  has  fewer  difficulties 
to  surmount,  a  principle  of  duty  may  still  be  wanted  to 
direct  and  regulate  its  exertions:  for  otherwise  it  is  apt 
to  spend  and  waste  itself  in  a  womanish  fondness 
for  the  person  of  the  child;  an  improvident  attention 
to  his  present  ease  and  gratification;  a  pernicious  fa- 
cility and  compliance  with  his  humours;  an  excessive 
and  superfluous  care  to  provide  the  externals  of  hap- 
piness, with  little  or  no  attention  to  the  internal  sources 
of  virtue  and  satisfaction.  Universally,  wherever  a 
parent's  conduct  is  prompted  or  directed  by  a  sense 
of  duty,  there  is  so  much  virtue. 

Having  premised  thus  much  concerning  the  place 
which  parental  duties  hold  in  the  scale  of  human  vir- 
tues, we  proceed  to  state  and  explain  the  duties  them- 
selves. 

When  moralists  tell  us,  that  parents  are  bound  to 
do  all  they  can  for  their  children,  they  tell  us  more 
than  is  true;  for,  at  that  rate,  every  expense  which 
might  have  been  spared,  and  every  profit  omitted 
which  might  have  been  made,  would  be  criminal. 

The  duty  of  parents  has  its  limits,  like  other  du- 
ties; and  admits,  if  not  of  perfect  precision,  at  least 
of  rules  definite  enough  for  application. 

These  rules  may  be  explained  under  the  several 
heads  of  maintenance,  education,  and  a  reasonable 
provision  for  the  child's  happiness  in  respect  of  out- 
ward condition. 

1.  Maintenance. 

The  wants  of  children  make  it  necessary  that  some 
person  maintain  them;  and,  as  no  one  has  a  right  to 
burden  others  by  his  act,  it  follows,  that  the  parents 
are  bound  to  undertake  this  charge  themselves.  Be- 
side this  plain  inference,  the  affection  of  parents  to 
their  children,  if  it  be  instinctive,  and  the  provision 
which  nature  has  prepared  in  the  person  of  the  mo- 


DtTTY  OF  PARENTS.  211 

ther  for  the  sustentation  of  the  infant,  concerning  the 
existence  and  design  of  which  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
are  manifest  indications  of  the  Divine  will. 

Hence  we  learn  the  guilt  of  those  who  run  away 
from  their  families,  or  (what  is  much  the  some,)  in 
consequence  of  idleness  or  drunkenness,  throw  them 
upon  a  parish;  or  who  leave  tnem  destitute  at  their 
death,  when,  by  diligence  and  frugality,  they  might 
have  laid  up  a  provision  for  their  support:  also  of 
those  who  refuse  or  neglect  the  care  of  their  bastard 
offspring,  abandoning  them  to  a  condition  in  which 
they  must  either  perish  or  become  burdensome  to 
others:  for  the  duty  of  maintenance,  like  the  reason 
upon  which  it  is  founded,  extends  to  bastards  as  well 
as  to  legitimate  children. 

The  Christian  Scriptures,  although  they  concern 
themselves  little  with  maxims  of  prudence  or  economy, 
and  much  less  authorize  worldly  mindedness  or  ava- 
rice, have  yet  declared  in  explicit  terms  their  judg- 
ment of  the  obligation  of  this  duty: — "  If  any  provide 
not  for  his  own,  especially  for  those  of  his  own  house- 
hold, he  hath  denied  the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an 
infidel,"  (1  Tim.  v.  8;)  he  hath  disgraced  the  Chris- 
tian profession,  and  fallen  short  in  a  duty  which  even 
infidels  acknowledge. 

2.  Education. 

Education,  in  the  most  extensive  sense  of  the  word, 
may  comprehend  every  preparation  that  is  made  in 
our  youth  for  the  sequel  of  our  lives;  and  in  this  sense 
I  use  it. 

Some  such  preparation  is  necessary  for  children  of 
all  conditions,  because  without  it  they  must  be  mise- 
rable, and  probably  will  be  vicious,  when  they  grow 
up,  either  from  want  of  the  means  of  subsistence,  or 
from  want  of  rational  and  inoffensive  occupation.  In 
civilized  life  every  thing  is  effected  by  art  and  skill 
Whence  a  person  who  is  provided  with  neither  (and 
neither  can  be  acquired  without  exercise  and  instruc- 
tion) will  be  useless;  and  he  that  is  useless  will  ge- 
nerally be  at  the  same  time  mischievous  to  the  com- 
munity. So  that  to  send  an  uneducated  child  into 
the  world  is  injurious  to  the  rest  of  mankind;  it  is 


212  DUTY  OF  PARENTS. 

little  better  than  to  turn  out  a  mad  dog  or  a  wild  beast 
into  the  streets. 

In  the  inferior  classes  of  the  community,  this  prin- 
ciple condemns  the  neglect  of  parents,  who  do  not 
inure  their  children  betimes  to  labour  and  restraint, 
by  providing  them  with  apprenticeships,  services,  or 
other  regular  employment,  but  who  suffer  them  to 
waste  their  youth  in  idleness  and  vagrancy,  or  to  be- 
take themselves  to  some  lazy,  trifling,  and  precarious 
calling:  for  the  consequence  of  having  thus  tasted 
the  sweets  of  natural  liberty,  at  an  age  when  their 
passion  and  relish  for  it  are  at  the  highest,  is  that  they 
become  incapable,  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives,  of 
continued  industry,  or  of  persevering  attention  to  any 
thing:  spend  their  time  in  a  miserable  struggle  be- 
tween the  importunity  of  want  and  the  irksomeness 
of  regular  application;  and  are  prepared  to  embrace 
every  expedient  which  presents  a  hope  of  supplying 
their  necessities  without  confining  them  to  the  plough, 
the  loom,  the  shop,  or  the  counting  house. 

In  the  middle  orders  of  society  those  parents  are 
most  reprehensible,  who  neither  qualify  their  children 
for  a  profession,  nor  enable  them  to  live  without  one;* 
and  those  in  the  highest,  who,  from  indolence,  indul- 
gence, or  avarice,  omit  to  procure  their  children  those 
liberal  attainments  which  are  necessary  to  make  them 
useful  in  the  stations  to  which  they  are  destined.  A 
man  of  fortune,  who  permits  his  son  to  consume  the 
season  of  education  in  hunting,  shooting,  or  in  fre- 
quenting horse  races,  assemblies,  or  other  unedifying, 
if  not  vicious  diversions,  defrauds  the  community  of 
a  benefactor,  and  bequeaths  them  a  nuisance. 

Some,  though  not  the  same  preparation  for  the, 
sequel  of  their  lives,  is  necessary  for  youth  of  every 
description;  and  therefore  for  bastards,  as  well  as  for 
children  of  better  expectations.  Consequently,  they 
who  leave  the  education  of  their  bastards  to  chance, 


Amongst  the  Athenians,  if  the  parent  did  not  put  his 
child  into  a  way  of  getting  a  livelihood,  the  child  was  not 
bound  to  make  provision  for  the  parent  when  old  and  neces- 
sitous. 


DUTY   OF  PARENTS.  213 

contenting  themselves  with  making  provision  for  their 
subsistence,  desert  half  their  duty. 

3.  A  reasonable  provision  for  the  happiness  of  a 
child,  in  respect  of  outward  condition,  requires  three 
things  :  a  situation  suited  to  his  habits  and  reasona- 
ble expectation;  a  competent  provision  for  the  exi- 
gencies of  that  situation;  and  a  probable  security  for 
his  virtue. 

The  first  two  articles  will  vary  with  the  condition 
of  the  parent.  A  situation  somewhat  approaching  in 
rank  and  condition  to  the  parent 'sown;  or,  where  that 
is  not  practicable,  similar  to  what  other  parents  of 
like  condition  provide  for  their  children;  bounds  the 
reasonable,  as  well  as  (generally  speaking)  the  actual 
expectations  of  the  child,  and  therefore  contains  the 
extent  of  the  parent's  obligation. 

Hence,  a  peasant  satisfies  his  duty  who  sends  out 
his  children,  properly  instructed  for  their  occupation, 
to  husbandry  or  to  any  branch  of  manufacture.  Cler- 
gymen, lawyers,  physicians,  off  cers  in  the  army  or 
navy,  gentlemen  possessing  moderate  fortunes  of  in- 
heritance, or  exercising  trade  in  a  large  or  liberal  way, 
are  required  by  the  same  rule  to  provide  their  sons 
with  learned  professions,  commissions  in  the  army  or 
navy,  places  in  public  offices,  or  reputable  branches 
of  merchandise.  Providing  a  child  with  a  situation 
includes  a  competent  supply  for  the  expenses  of  that 
situation,  until  the  profits  of  it  enable  the  child  to 
support  himself.  Noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  high 
,rank  and  fortune  may  be  bound  to  transmit  an  inhe- 
ritance to  the  representatives  of  their  family,  sufficient 
for  their  support  without  the  aid  of  a  trade  or  profes- 
sion, to  which  there  is  little  hope  that  a  youth,  who 
has  been  flattered  with  other  expectations,  will  apply 
himself  with  diligence  or  success.  In  these  parts  of 
the  world,  public  opinion  has  assorted  the  members 
of  the  community  into  four  or  five  general  classes, 
each  class  comprising  a  great  variety  of  employments 
and  professions,  the  choice  of  which  must  be  commit- 
ted to  the  private  discretion  of  the  parent.*  All  that 

*  The  health  and  virtue  of  a  child's  future  life  are  consid- 
erations so  superior  to  all  others,  that  whatever  is  likely  lo 


214  DUTY   OF  PARENTS. 

can  be  expected  from  parents  as  a  duty,  and  therefore 
the  only  rule  which  a  moralist  can  deliver  upon  the 
subject  is,  that  they  endeavour  to  preserve  their  chil- 
dren in  the  class  in  which  they  are  born,  that  is  to 
say,  in  which  others  of  similar  expectations  are  ac- 
customed to  be  placed;  and  that  they  be  careful  to 
confine  their  hopes  and  habits  of  indulgence  to  objects 
which  will  continue  to  be  attainable. 

It  is  an  ill  judged  thrift,  in  some  rich  parents,  to 
bring  up  their  sons  to  mean  employments,  for  the 
sake  of  saving  the  charge  of  a  more  expensive  edu- 
cation: for  these  sons,  when  they  become  masters  of 
their  liberty  and  fortune,  will  hardly  continue  in  oc- 


have  the  smallest  influence  upon  these,  deserves  the  parent's 
attention.  In  respect  of  health,  agriculture,  and  all  the  ac- 
tive, rural,  and  out  of  door  employments  are  to  be  preferred 
to  manufactures  and  sedentary  occupations.  In  respect  of 
virtue,  a  course  of  dealings  in  which  the  advantage  is  mutu- 
al, in  which  the  profit  on  one  side  is  connected  with  the 
benefit  of  the  other  (which  is  the  case  in  trade,  and  all  ser- 
viceable art  or  labour,)  is  more  favourable  to  the  moral  cha- 
racter than  callings  in  which  one  man's  gain  is  another  man's 
loss  ;  in  which  what  you  acquire  is  acquired  without  equi- 
valent, and  parted  with  in  distress  :  as  in  gaming,  and  what- 
ever partakes  of  gaming,  and  in  the  predatory  profits  of  war. 
The  following  distinctions  also  deserve  notice  : — A  business, 
like  a  retail  trade,  in  which  the  profits  are  small  and  frequent, 
and  accruing  from  the  employment,  furnishes  a  moderate  and 
constant  engagement  to  the  mind,  and,  so  far,  suits  better  - 
with  the  general  disposition  of  mankind  than  professions 
which  are  supported  by  fixed  salaries,  as  stations  in  the 
church,  army,  navy,  revenue,  public  offices,  &c.  or  wherein 
the  profits  are  made  in  large  sums,  by  a  few  great  concerns, 
or  fortunate  adventures  ;  as  in  many  branches  of  wholesale 
and  foreign  merchandise,  in  which  the  occupation  is  neither 
so  constant,  nor  the  activity  so  kept  alive  by  immediate  en- 
couragement. For  security,  manual  arts  exceed  merchan- 
dise, and  such  as  supply  the  wants  of  mankind  are  better 
than  those  which  minister  to  their  pleasure.  Situations 
which  promise  an  early  settlement  in  marriage  are  ou 
many  accounts  to  be  chosen  before  those  which  require  a  lon- 
ger waiting  for  a  larger  establishment. 


DUTY  OF  PARENTS.  215 

cupations  by  which  they  think  themselves  degraded, 
and  are  seldom  qualified  for  any  thing  better. 

An  attention,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  exigencies  of 
the  children's  respective  conditions  in  the  world;  and 
a  regard,  in  the  second  place,  to  their  reasonable  ex 
pectations,  always  postponing  the  expectations  to  the 
exigencies,  when  both  cannot  be  satisfied;  ought  to 
guide  parents  in  the  disposal  of  their  fortunes  after 
their  death.  And  these  exigencies  and  expectations 
must  be  measured  by  the  standard  which  custom  has 
established:  for  there  is  a  certain  appearance,  attend- 
ance, establishment,  and  mode  of  living,  which  custom 
has  annexed  to  the  several  ranks  and  orders  of  civil 
life  (and  which  compose  what  is  called  decency,}  to- 
gether with  a  certain  society,  and  particular  pleasures, 
belonging  to  each  class:  and  a  young  person  who  is 
withheld  from  sharing  in  these  for  want  of  fortune, 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  a  fair  chance  for  happi- 
ness j  the  indignity  and  mortification  of  such  a  seclu- 
sion being  what  few  tempers  can  bear,  or  bear  with 
contentment.  And  as  to  the  second  consideration,  of 
what  a  child  may  reasonably  expect  from  his  parent, 
he  will  expect  what  he  sees  all  or  most  others  in  simi- 
lar circumstances  receive;  and  we  can  hardly  call 
expectations  unreasonable,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
suppress. 

By  virtue  of  this  rule,  a  parent  is  justified  in  mak- 
ing a  difference  between  his  children,  according  as 
they  stand  in  greater  or  less  need  of  the  assistance  of 
his  fortune,  in  consequence  of  the  difference  of  their 
age  or  sex,  or  of  the  situations  in  which  they  are 
placed,  or  the  various  success  which  they  have  met 
with. 

On  account  of  the  few  lucrative  employments  which 
are  left  to  the  female  sex,  and  by  consequence  the 
little  opportunity  they  have  of  adding  to  their  income, 
daughters  ought  to  be  the  particular  objects  of  a  pa- 
rent's care  and  foresight;  and  as  an  option  of  mar- 
riage, from  which  they  can  reasonably  expect  happi- 
ness, is  not  presented  to  every  woman  who  deserves 
it,  especially  in  times  in  which  a  licentious  celibacy 
is  in  fashion  with  the  men,  a  father  should  endeavour 


216  DUTY   OF  PARENTS. 

to  enable  his  daughters  to  lead  a  single  life  with  in- 
dependence and  decorum,  even  though  he  subtract 
more  for  tnat  purpose  from  the  portions  of  his  sons 
than  is  agreeable  to  modern  usage,  or  than  they  expect. 

But  when  the  exigencies  of  their  several  situations 
are  provided  for,  and  not  before,  a  parent  ought  to 
admit  the  second  consideration,  the  satisfaction  of  his 
children's  expectations;  and  upon  that  principle,  to 
prefer  the  eldest  son  to  the  rest  and  sons  to  daugh- 
ters; which  constitutes  the  right,  and  the  whole  right, 
of  primogeniture,  as  well  as  r,he  only  reason  for  the 
preference  of  one  sex  to  the  otner.  The  preference, 
indeed,  of  the  first-born  has  one  public  good  effect, 
that  if  the  estate  were  divided  equally  amongst  the 
sons,  it  would  probably  make  them  all  idle;  whereas, 
by  the  present  rule  of  descent,  it  makes  only  one  so; 
which  is  the  Hss  evil  of  the  two.  And  it  must  further 
be  observed  on  the  part  of  the  sons,  that  if  the  rest  of 
the  community  make  it  a  rule  to  prefer  sons  to  daugh- 
ters, an  individual  of  that  community  ought  to  guide 
himself  by  the  same  rule,  upon  principles  of  mere 
equality.  For,  as  the  son  suffers  by  the  rule,  in  the 
fortune  he  may  expect  in  marriage,  it  is  but  reasona- 
ble that  he  should  receive  the  advantage  of  it  in  his 
own  inheritance.  Indeed,  whatever  the  rule  be,  as  to 
the  preference  of  one  sex  to  the  other,  marriage  re- 
stores the  equality.  And  as  money  is  generally  more 
convertible  to  profit,  and  more  likely  to  promote  in- 
dustry, in  the  hands  of  men  than  of  women,  the  cus- 
tom of  this  country  may  properly  be  complied  with 
when  it  does  not  interfere  with  the  weightier  reason 
explained  in  the  last  paragraph. 

The  point  of  the  children's  actual  expectations,  to- 
gether with  the  expediency  of  subjecting  the  illicit 
commerce  of  the  sexes  to  every  discouragement  which 
it  can  receive,  makes  the  difference  between  the  claims 
of  legitimate  children  arid  of  bastards.  But  neither 
reason  will  in  any  case  justify  the  leaving  of  bastards 
to  the  world  without  provision,  education,  or  profes- 
sion; or,  what  is  more  cruel,  without  the  means  of 
continuing  in  the  situation  to  which  the  parent  has 


DUTY   OF  PARENTS.  217 

introduced  them;  which  last  is,  to  leave  them  to  in- 
evitable misery. 

After  the  first  requisite,  namely,  a  provision  for  the 
exigencies  of  his  situation,  is  satisfied,  a  parent  may 
diminish  a  child's  portion,  in  order  to  punish  any  fla- 
grant crime,  or  to  punish  contumacy  and  want  of 
filial  duty  in  instances  not  otherwise  criminal:  for  a 
child  who  is  conscious  of  bad  behaviour,  or  of  con- 
tempt of  his  parent's  will  and  happiness,  cannot  rea- 
sonably expect  ihe  same  instances  of  his  munificence. 

A  child's  vices  may  be  of  that  sort,  and  his  vicious 
habits  so  incorrigible,  as  to  afford  much  the  same 
reason  for  believing  that  he  will  waste  or  misemploy 
the  fortune  put  into  his  power,  as  if  he  were  mad  or 
idiotish;  in  which  case  a  parent  may  treat  him  as  a 
madman  or  an  idiot;  that  is,  may  deem  it  sufficient 
to  provide  for  his  support,  by  an  annuit^  equal  to  his 
wants  and  innocent  enjoyments,  and  which  he  may 
be  restrained  from  alienating.  This  seems  to  be  the 
only  case  in  which  a  disinherison,  nearly  absoluto,  is 
justifiable. 

Let  not  a  father  hope  to  excuse  an  inofficious  dis- 
position of  his  fortune, -by  alleging,  that  "  every  man 
may  do  what  he  will  with  his  own."  All  the  truth 
which  this  expression  contains  is,  that  his  discretion 
is  under  no  control  of  law;  and  that  his  will,  however 
capricious,  will  be  valid.  This  by  no  means  absolves 
his  conscience  from  the  obligations  of  a  parent,  or  im- 
ports that  he  may  neglect,  without  injustice,  the  seve- 
ral wants  and  expectations  of  his  family,  in  order  to 
gratify  a  whim  or  pique,  or  indulge  a  preference 
founded  in  no  reasonable  distinction  of  merit  or  situa- 
tion. Although  in  his  intercourse  with  his  family, 
and  in  the  lesser  endearments  of  domestic  life,  a  pa- 
rent may  not  always  resist  his  partiality  to  a  favourite 
child  (which,  however,  should  be  both  avoided  and 
concealed,  as  oftentimes  productive  of  lasting  jea- 
lousies and  discontents,)  yet,  when  he  sits  down  to 
make  his  will,  these  tendernesses  must  give  place  to 
more  manly  deliberations. 

A  father  of  a  family  is  bound  to  adjust  his  economy 
with  a  view  to  these  demands  upon  his  fortune;  and 

VOL.  J,  19 


218  DUTY   OF  PARENTS. 

until  a  sufficiency  for  these  ends  is  required,  or  in 
due  time  probably  will  be  acquired  (for,  in  human  af- 
fairs, probability  ought  to  content  us,)  frugality  and 
exertions  of  industry  are  duties.  He  is  also  justified 
in  the  declining  expensive  liberality;  for,  to  take  from 
those  who  want,  in  order  to  give  to  those  who  want, 
adds  nothing  to  the  stock  of  public  happines.  Thus 
far,  therefore,  and  no  farther,  the  plea  of"  children," 
of  "  large  families,"  "  charity  begins  at  home,"  &c. 
is  an  excuse  for  parsimony,  and  an  answer  to  those 
\vho  solicit  our  bounty.  Beyond  this  point,  as  the 
use  of  riches  becomes  less,  the  desire  of  laying  tip 
should  abate  proportionally.  The  truth  is,  our  cliil  - 
dren  gain  not  so  much  as  we  imagine,  in  the  chance 
of  this  world's  happiness,  or  even  of  its  external  pros- 
perity, by  setting  out  in  it  with  large  capitals.  Of 
those  vho  have  died  rich,  a  great  part  began  with 
little.  And,  in  respect  of  enjoyment,  there  is  no  com- 
parison between  a  fortune  which  a  man  acquires  by 
well  applied  industry,  or  by  a  series  of  successes  in 
his  business,  and  one  found  in  his  possession,  or  re- 
ceived from  another. 

A  principal  part  of  a  parents  dutv  is  st'il  behind, 
viz.  the  using  of  proper  precautions  and  expedients, 
in  order  to  form  and  preserve  his  children's  virtue. 

To  us,  who  believe  that,  in  one  stage  or  other  of 
our  existence,  virtue  will  conduct  to  happiness,  and 
vice  terminate  in  misery;  and  who  observe  withal, 
that  men's  virtr.es  and  vices  are,  to  a  certain  degree, 
produced  or  affected  by  the  management  of  their 
youth,  and  the  situations  in  which  they  are  placed;  to 
all  who  attend  to  these  reasons,  the  obligation  to  con- 
sult a  child's  virtue  will  appear  to  differ  in  nothing 
from  that  by  which  the  parent  is  bound  to  provide  for 
his  maintenance  or  fortune.  The  child's  interest  is 
concerned  in  the  one  means  of  happiness  as  well  as  in 
the  other;  and  both  means  are  equally,  and  almost 
exclusively,  in  the  parent's  power. 

For  this  purpose,  the  first  poinMo  be  endeavoured 
after,  is  to  impress  upon  children  the  idea  of  account- 
ableness,  that  is,  to  accustom  them  to  look  forward  to 
the  consequences  of  their  actions  in  another  world; 


DUTY  OF  PARENTS.  219 

which  can  only  be  brought  about  by  the  parents  visibly 
acting  with  a  view  to  these  consequences  themselves. 
Parents,  to  do  them  justice,  are  seldom  sparing  of 
lessons  of  virtue  and  religion;  in  admonitions  which 
cost  little,  and  which  profit  less;  whilst  their  example 
exhibits  a  continual  contradiction  of  what  they  teach. 
A  father,  for  instance,  will,  with  much  solemnity  and 
apparent  earnestness,  warn  his  son  against  idleness, 
excess  in  drinking,  debauchery,  and  extravagance, 
who  himself  loiters  about  all  day  without  employmenl ; 
comes  home  every  night  drunk ;  is  made  infamous  in 
his  neighbourhood  by  some  profligate  connexion;  and 
wastes  the  fortune  which  should  support,  or  remain  a 
provision  for  his  family,  in  riot,  or  luxury,  or  ostenta- 
tion. Or  he  will  discourse  gravely  before  his  chil- 
dren of  the  obligation  and  importance  of  revealed 
religion,  whilst  they  see  the  most  frivolous  and  often- 
times feigned  excuses  detain  him  from  its  reasonable 
and  solemn  ordinances.  Or  he  will  set  before  them, 
perhaps,  the  supreme  and  tremendous  authority  of 
Almighty  God;  that  such  a  Being  ought  not  to  be 
named,  01  even  thought  upon,  without  sentiments  of 
profound  awe  and  veneration.  This  may  be  the  lec- 
ture he  delivers  to  his  family  one  hour;  when  the 
next,  if  an  occasion  arise  to  excite  his  anger,  his  mirth, 
or  his  surprise,  they  will  hear  him  treat  the  name  of 
the  Deity  with  the  most  irreverent  profanation,  and 
sport  with  the  terms  and  denunciations  of  the  Christian 
religion,  as  if  they  were  the  language  of  some  ridicu- 
lous and  long  exploded  superstition.  Now,  even  a 
child  is  not  to  be  imposed  upon  by  such  mockery.  He 
sees  through  the  grimace  of  this  counterfeited  concern 
for  virtue.  He  discovers  that  his  parent  is  acting  a 
part;  and  receives  his  admonitions  as  he  would  hear 
the  same  maxims  from  the  mouth  of  a  player.  And 
when  once  this  opinion  has  taken  possession  of  the 
child's  mind,  it  has  a  fatal  effect  upon  the  parent's 
influence  in  all  subjects;  even  those,  in  which  he 
himself  may  be  sincere  and  convinced.  Whereas  a 
silent,  but  observable  regard  to  the  duties  of  religion, 
in  the  parent's  own  behaviour,  will  take  a  sure  and 
gradual  hold  of  the  child's  disposition,  much  beyond 


220  DUTY  OF   PARENTS. 

formal  reproofs  and  chidings,  which,  being  generally 
prompted  by  some  present  provocation,  discover  more 
of  anger  than  of  principle,  and  are  always  received 
with  a  temporary  alienation  and  disgust. 

A  good  parent's  first  care  is  to  be  virtuous  himself; 
his  second,  to  make  his  virtues  as  easy  and  engaging 
to  those  about  him  as  their  nature  will  admit.  Virtue 
itself  offends,  when  coupled  with  forbidding  manners. 
And  some  virtues  may  be  urged  to  such  excess,  or 
brought  forward  so  unseasonably,  as  to  discourage  and 
repel  those  who  observe  and  who  are  acted  upon  by 
them,  instead  of  exciting  an  inclination  to  imitate  and 
adopt  them.  Young  minds  are  particularly  liable  to 
these  unfortunate  impressions.  For  instance,  if  a 
father's  economy  degenerate  into  a  minute  and  teasing 
parsimony,  it  is  odds  but  that  the  son,  who  has  suffered 
under  it,  sets  out  a  sworn  enemy  to  all  rules  of  order 
and  frugality.  If  a  father's  piety  be  morose,  rigorous, 
and  tinged  with  melancholy,  perpetually  break  inn-  in 
upon  the  recreation  of  his  family,  and  surfeiting  them 
with  the  language  of  religion  on  all  occasions,  there 
is  danger  lest  the  son  carry  from  home  with  him  a 
settled  prejudice  against  seriousness  and  religion,  as 
inconsistent  with  every  plan  of  a  pleasurable  lifej 
and  turn  out,  when  he  mixes  with  the  world,  a  cha- 
racter of  levity  or  dissoluteness. 

Something  likewise  may  be  done  towards  the  cor- 
recting or  improving  of  those  early  inclinations  which 
children  discover,  by  disposing  them  into  situations 
the  least  dangerous  to  their  particular  characters 
Thus,  I  would  make  choice  of  a  retired  life  for  young 
persons  addicted  to  licentious  pleasures;  of  private 
stations  for  the  proud  and  passionate;  of  liberal  pro- 
fessions, and  a  town-life,  for  the  mercenary  and  sottish; 
and  not,  according  to  the  general  practice  of  parents, 
send  dissolute  youths  into  the  army;  penurious  tem- 
pers to  trade;  or  make  a  crafty  lad  an  attorney,  or 
flatter  a  vain  and  haughty  temper  with  elevated  names, 
or  situations,  or  callings,  to  which  the  fashion  of  the 
world  has  annexed  precedency  and  distinction,  but 
in  which  his  disposition,  without  at  all  promoting  hia 
success,  will  serve  both  to  multiply  >  and  exasocrate  his 


RIGHTS  OF  PARENTS.  221 

disappointments.  In  the  same  way,  that  is,  with  a 
view  to  the  particular  frame  and  tendency  of  the  pupil's 
character,  I  would  make  choice  of  a  public  or  private 
education.  The  reserved,  timid,  and  indolent  will 
have  their  faculties  called  forth,  and  their  nerves  in- 
vigorated by  a  public  education.  Youths  of  strong 
spirits  and  passions  will  be  safer  in  a  private  educa- 
tion. At  our  public  schools,  as  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, more  literature  is  acquired,  and  more  vice; 
quick  parts  are  cultivated,  slow  ones  are  neglected. 
Under  private  tuition,  a  moderate  proficiency  in  juve- 
nile learning  is  seldom  exceeded,  but  with  more  cer 
tamty  attained. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  RIGHTS  OF  PARENTS 

THE  rights  of  parents  result  from  their  duties.  If 
it  be  the  duty  of  a  parent  to  educate  his  children,  to 
form  them  for  a  life  of  usefulness  and  virtue,  to  pro- 
vide for  them  situations  needful  for  their  subsistence 
and  suited  to  their  circumstances,  and  to  prepare  them 
for  those  situations*  he  has  a  right  to  such  authority, 
and  in  support  of  that  authority  to  exercise  such  dis- 
cipline as  may  be  necessary  for  these  purposes.  The 
law  of  nature  acknowledges  no  other  foundation  of  a 
parent's  right  over  his  children,  besides  his  duty  to- 
wards them  (I  speak  now  of  such  rights  as  may  be 
enforced  by  coercion.)  This  relation  confers  no  pro- 
perty in  their  persons,  cr  natural  dominion  over  them, 
as  is  commonly  supposed. 

Since  it  is,  in  general,  necessary  to  determine  the 
destination  of  children,  before  they  are  capable  of 
judging  of  their  own  happiness,  parents  have  a  right 
to  elect  professions  for  them. 

As  the  mother  nerself  owes  obedience  to  the  father, 
her  authority  must  submit  to  his.  In  a  competition, 
therefore,  of  commands,  the  father  is  to  be  obeyed. 
VOL.I  19* 


222  RIGHTS   OF  PARENTS 

In  case  of  the  death  of  cither,  the  authority,  as  well  as 
duty,  of  both  parents,  devolves  upon  the  survivor. 

These  rights,  always  following  the  duty,  belong 
likewise  to  guardians;  and  so  much  of  them  as  is 
delegated  by  the  parents  or  guardians  belongs  to 
tutors,  schoolmasters,  &c 

From  this  principle,  "  that  the  rights  of  parent? 
result  from  their  duty,"  it  follows  that  parents  have 
no  natural  right  over  the  lives  of  their  children,  as  was 
absurdly  allowed  to  Roman  fathers;  nor  any  to  exer- 
cise unprofitable  severities;  nor  to  command  the  com- 
mission of  crimes:  for  these  rights  can  never  be 
wanted  for  the  purpose  of  a  parent's  duty. 

Nor,  for  the  same  reason,  have  parents  any  right  to 
sell  their  children  into  slavery.  Upon  which,  by  the 
way,  we  may  observe,  that  the  children  of  slaves  are 
not,  by  the  law  of  nature,  born  slaves;  for,  as  the 
master's  right  is  derived  to  him  through  the  parent, 
it  can  never  be  greater  than  the  parent's  own. 

Hence  also  it  appears,  that  parents  not  only  pervert, 
but  exceed,  their  just  authority,  when  they  cousult 
their  own  ambition,  interest,  or  prejudice,  at  the  mani- 
fest expense  of  their  children's  happiness.  Of  which 
abuse  of  parental  power,  the  following  are  instance?. 
The  shutting  up  of  daughters  and  younger  sons  in  nun- 
neries and  monasteries,  in  order  to  preserve  entire  tnc 
estate  and  dignity  of  the  family;  or  the  usinjgr  of  any 
arts,  either  of  kindness  or  unkindness,  to  induce  them 
to  make  choice  of  this  way  of  life  themselves;  or,  in 
countries  where  the  clergy  are  prohibited  from  mar- 
riage, putting  sons  into  the  church  for  the  same  end, 
who  are  never  likely  either  to  do  or  receive  any  good 
in  it,  sufficient  to  compensate  for  this  sacrifice;  the 
urging  of  children  to  marriages  from  which  they  are 
averse,  with  the  view  of  exalting  or  enriching  tnc 
family,  or  for  the  sake  of  connecting  estates,  parties, 
or  interests;  or  the  opposing  of  a  marriage,  in  which 
the  child  would  probably  find  his  happiness,  from  a 
motive  of  pride,  or  avarice  or  family  hostility,  or  per- 
social  pique. 


DUTY  OF  CHILDREN.  223 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE   DUTY   OF    CHILDREN. 

THE  Duty  of  Children  may  be  considered, 

1.  During  childhood. 

2.  After  they  have  attained  to  manhood,  but   con- 
tinue in  their  father's  family. 

3.  After  they  have  attained  to  manhood,  and  have 
left  their  father's  family. 

1.  During  childhood. 

Children  must  be  supposed  to  have  attained  to  some 
degree  of  discretion  before  they  are  capable  of  any 
duty.  There  is  an  interval  of  eight  or  nine  years 
between  the  dawning  and  the  maturity  of  reason,  in 
which  it  is  necessary  to  subject  the  inclination  of  chil- 
dren to  many  restraints,  and  direct  their  application 
to  many  employments,  of  the  tendency  and  use  of 
which  they  cannot  judge;  for  which  cause,  the  sub- 
mission of  children  during  this  period  must  be  ready 
and  implicit,  with  an  exception,  however,  of  any  ma- 
nifest crime  which  may  be  commanded  them. 

2.  After  they  have  attained  to  manhood,  but  con- 
tinue in  their  father's  family. 

If  children,  when  they  are  grown  up,  voluntarily 
continue  members  of  their  father's  family,  they  are 
bound,  beside  the  general  duty  of  gratitude  to  their 
parents,  to  observe  such  regulations  of  the  family  as 
the  father  shall  appoint;  contribute  their  labour  to 
its  support,  if  required;  and  confine  themselves  to 
such  expenses  as  he  shall  allow.  The  obligation 
would  be  the  same,  if  they  were  admitted  into  any 
other  family,  or  received  support  from  any  other  hand. 

3.  After  they  have  attained  to  manhood,  and  hav  >, 
left  their  fathers  family. 

In  this  state  of  the  relation,  the  duty  to  parents  is 
simply  the  duty  of  gratitude;  not  different  in  kind, 
from  that  which  we  owe  to  any  other  benefator;  in 
degree,  just  so  much  exceeding  other  obligations,  by 
how  much  a  parent  has  b?en  a  greater  benefactor  than 
any  other  friend.  The  services  and  attentions,  by 


224  DUTY  OF  CHILDREN. 

which  filial  gratitude  may  be  testified,  can  be  compris- 
ed within  no  enumeration.  It  will  show  itstlf  in  com- 
pliances with  the  will  of  the  parents,  however  contra- 
ry to  the  child's  own  taste  or  judgment,  provided  it  be 
neither  criminal,  nor  totally  inconsistent,  with  his  hap- 
piness: in  a  constant  endeavour  to  promote  their  en- 
joyments, prevent  their  wishes,  and  soften  their  anxie- 
ties, in  small  matters  as  well  as  in  great;  in  assisting 
them  in  their  business;  in  contributing  to  their  sup- 
port, ease,  or  better  accommodation,  when  their  cir- 
cumstances require  it;  in  affording  them  our  company, 
in  preference  to  more  amusing  engagements;  in  wait- 
ing upon  their  sickness  or  decrepitude;  in  bearing  with 
the  infirmities  of  their  health  or  temper,  with  the 
peevishness  and  complaints,  the  unfashionable,  negli- 
gent, austere  manners,  and  offensive  habits,  which 
often  attend  upon  advanced  years:  for  where  must 
old  age  find  indulgence,  if  it  do  not  meet  with  it  in  the 
piety  and  partiality  of  children  ? 

The  most  serious  contentions  between  parents  and 
their  children,  are  those  commonly  which  relate  to 
marriage,  or  to  the  choice  of  a  profession. 

A  parent  has,  in  no  case,  a  right  to  destroy  his 
child's  happiness.  If  it  be  true,  therefore.,  that  there 
exist  such  personal  and  exclusive  attachments  between 
indviduals  of  different  sexes,  that  the  possession  of  a 
particular  man  or  woman  in  marriage  be  really  neces- 
sary for  the  child's  happiness;  or  if  it  be  true,  that  an 
aversion  to  a  particular  profession  may  be  involuntary 
and  unconquerable;  then  it  will  follow,  that  parents, 
where  this  is  tne  case,  ought  not  to  urge  their  autho- 
rity, and  that  the  child  is  not  bound  to  obey  it. 

The  point  is,  to  discover  how  far,  in  -my  particular 
instance,  this  is  the  case.  Whether  the  fondness  of 
lovers  ever  continues  with  such  intensity,  and  so  loner, 
that  the  success  of  their  desires  constitutes,  or  the  dis- 
appointment affects,  any  considerable  portion  of  their 
happiness,  compared  with  that  of  their  whole  life,  it 
is  difficult  to  determine:  but  there  can  be  no  difficulty 
in  pronouncing,  that  not  one  half  of  those  attachments, 
which  young  people  conceive  with  so  much  haste  and 
passion,  are  of  this  sort.  I  believe  it  also  to  be  true, 


DUTY  OF  CHILDREN.  225 

that  there  are  few  aversions  to  a  profession,  which 
resolution,  perseverance,  activity  in  going  about  the 
duty  of  it,  and,  above  all,  despair  of  changing,  will 
not  subdue;  yet  there  are  some  such.  Wherefore,  a 
child  who  respects  his  parent's  judgment,  and  is,  as  he 
ought  to  be,  tender  of  their  happiness,  owes,  at  least, 
so  much  deference  to  their  will,  as  to  try  fairly  and 
faithfully,  in  one  case,  whether  time  and  absence  will 
not  cool  an  affection  which  they  disapprove;  and  in 
the  other,  whether  a  longer  continuance  in  the  pro 
fession  which  they  have  chosen  for  him  may  not 
reconcile  him  to  it.  The  whole  depends  upon  the 
experiment  being  made  on  the  child's  part  with  sin- 
cerity, and  not  merely  with  a  design  of  compassing 
his  purpose  at  last,  by  means  of  a  simulated  and  tem- 
porary compliance.  It  is  the  nature  of  love  and 
hatred,  and  of  all  violent  affections,  to  delude  the  mind 
with  a  persuasion  that  we  shall  always  continue  to 
feel  them  as  we  feel  them  at  present ;  we  cannot  con 
ceive  that  they  will  either  change  or  cease.  Expe- 
rience of  similar  or  greater  changes  in  ourselves,  or  a 
habit  of  giving  credit  to  what  our  parents,  or  tutors, 
or  books,  teach  us,  may  control  this  persuasion,  other- 
wise it  renders  youth  very  untractable:  for  they  see 
clearly  and  truly,  that  it  is  impossible  they  should  be 
happy  under  the  circumstances  proposed  to  them,  in 
their  present  state  of  mind.  After  a  sincere  but  in- 
effectual endeavour,  by  the  child,  to  accommodate  his 
inclination  to  his  parent's  pleasure,  he  ought  not  to 
suffer  in  his  parent's  affection,  or  in  his  fortunes.  The 
parent,  when  he  has  reasonable  proof  of  this,  should 
acquiesce:  at  all  events,  the  child  is  then  at  liberty  to 
provide  for  his  own  happiness. 

Parents  have  no  right  to  urge  their  children  upon 
marriages  to  which  they  are  averse;  nor  ought,  in 
any  shape,  to  resent  the  children's  disobedience  to 
such  commands.  This  is  a  different  case  from  oppos- 
ing a  match  of  inclination,  because  the  child's  misery 
is  a  much  more  probable  consequence;  it  being  easier 
to  live  without  a  person  that  we  love,  than  with  one 
whom  we  hate.  Add  to  this,  that  compulsion  in 
marriage  necessarily  leads  to  prevarication ;  as  the 


226  DUTY   OF  CHILDREN. 

Teluctant  party  promises  an  affection,  which  neither 
exists,  nor  is  expected  to  take  place;  and  parental, 
like  ah  human  authority,  ceases  at  the  point  where 
obedience  becomes  criminal 

In  the  abovementioned.  and  in  all  contests  between 
parents  and  children,  it  is  the  parent's  duty  to  repre- 
sent to  the  child  the  consequences  of  his  conduct; 
and  it  will  be  found  his  best  policy  to  represent  thorn 
with  fidelity.  Jt  is  usual  for  parents  to  exaggerate 
these  descriptions  beyond  probability,  and  by  exag- 
geration to  lose  all  credit  with  their  children;  thus,  in 
a  great  measure,  defeating  their  own  end. 

Parents  are  forbidden  to  interfere,  where  a  trust  is 
reposed  personally  in  the  son;  and  where,  conse« 
quently,  the  son  was  expected,  and  by  virtue  of  that 
expectation  is  obliged,  to  pursue  his  own  judgment, 
and  not  tha*  of  any  other:  as  is  the  case  with  judi- 
cial magistrates  in  the  execution  of  their  office;  witn 
members  of  The  legislature  in  their  votes;  with  elec- 
tors, where  pieference  is  to  be  given  to  certain  pre- 
scribed qualifications.  The  son  Kiay  assist  his  own 
judgment  by  the  advice  of  his  father,  or  of  any  one 
whom  he  chooses  to  consult;  but  his  own  judgment, 
whether  it  proceed  upon  knowledge  or  authority, 
ought  finally  to  determine  his  conduct. 

The  duty  of  children  to  their  parents  was  thought 
worthy  to  be  made  the  subject  of  one  of  the  Ten  Com 
mandments;  and,  as  such,  is  recognized  by  Christ, 
together  with  the  rest  of  the  moral  precepts  of  the 
Decalogue,  in  various  places  of  the  Gospel. 

The  same  Divine  Teacher's  sentiments  concerning 
the  relief  of  indigent  parents  appear  sufficiently  from 
that  manly  and  deserved  indignation  with  which  he 
reprehended  the  wretched  casuistry  of  the  Jewish  ex- 
positors, who,  under  the  name  of  a  tradition,  had  con- 
trived a  method  of  evading  this  duty,  by  converting, 
or  pretending  to  convert,  to  the  treasury  of  the  temple, 
BO  much  of  their  property  as  their  distressed  parent 
(night  be  entitled  by  their  law  to  demand. 

Agreeably  to  this  law  of  Nature  and  Christianity, 
children  are,  by  the  law  of  England,  bound  to  sup- 
port, as  well  their  immediate  parents,  as  their  grand- 


DUTY  OF  CHILDREN.  227 

father  and  grandmother,  or  remoter  ancestors,  who 
stand  in  need  of  support. 

Obedience  to  parents  is  enjoined  by  St.  Paul  to  the 
Ephesians,  "  Children,  obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord, 
for  this  is  right;"  and  to  the  Colossians,  "Children, 
obey  your  parents  in  all  things,  for  this  is  well  pleas 
ing  unto  the  Lord.*'* 

By  the  Jewish  law,  disobedience  to  parents  was  in 
some  extreme  cases  capital.  Deut.  xxi.  18 


*  Upon  which  two  phrases,  "  this  is  right,  and,  "  for  this 
is  well  pleasing  unto  the  Lord,"  being  used  by  St.  Paul  in 
a  sense  perfectly  parallel,  we  may  observe,  that  moral  recti- 
tude and  conformity  to  the  Divine  will  were,  in  his  appre 
hens  ion,  the  same 


BOSTON   SCHOOL   EDITION. 

THE 

PRINCIPLES 

OF 

MORAL   AND   POLITICAL 


BY  WILLIAM  PALEY,  D.  D. 


TOR    THE    EXAMINATION    OF    STUDENTS. 

BY  JOHN  FROST, 

PRINCIPAL  OF  THE  MAYHEW  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL,  BOSTON 


TWO  VOLUMES  IN  ONE. 
VOI..  II. 


BOSTON  : 
BENJAMIN   B.  MUSSEY    &    CO., 

29   CORNHILL. 
1852. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1832,  by 

NATHANIEL  H.  WHITAZER, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  IV. 

DUTIES    TO    OURSELVES,    AND  THE    CRIME3  OPFO 
SITE  TO  THESE. 

Chap.  Pane 

1.  The  Rights  of  Self-Defence  6 

2.  Drunkenness       -...••       8 
8.  Suicide       -------     18 


BOOK  V. 

DUTIES  TOWARDS  GOD. 

'J  Division  of  these  Duties  -  -  -  -  20 
8.  Of  the  Duty  and  of  the  Efficacy  of  Prayer, 

so  far  as  the  same  appear  from  the  Light 

of  Nature      ------     21 

3.  Of  the  Duty  and  Efficacy  of  Prayer,  as 

represented  in  Scripture  -  -  -  -  27 
4  Of  Private  Prayer,  Family  Prayer,  and  Public 

Worship          ------     80 

5.  Of  Forms  of  Prayer  in  Public  Worship        -    86 

6.  Of  the  Use  of  Sabbatical  Institutions  -        -    41 

7.  Of  the  Scripture   Accout  of  Sabbatical  In- 

stitutions       -  -     48 


CONTENT!. 


Chap.  Pagt 

8.  By  what  Acts  and  Omissions  the  Duty  of  the 

Christian  Sabbath  is  violated  -  55 

9.  Of  Reverencing  the  Deity  -  -    57 


BOOK  VI. 

ELEMENTS  OF  POLITICAL  KNOWLEDGE 

1.  Of  the  Origin  of  Civil  Government       -        -     65 

2.  How  Subjection  to  Civil  Government  is  main- 

tained   -------69 

3.  The  Duty  of  Submission  to  Civil  Government 

explained       ------     75 

4.  Of  the  duty  of  Civil  Obedience,  as  stated  in 

the  Christian  Scriptures  -  -     87 

5.  Of  Civil  Liberty          -----     94 

6.  Of  different  Forms  of  Government       -        -     99 

7.  Of  the  British  Constitution  -         -         -  108 

8.  Of  the  Administration  of  Justice          -         -  132 

9.  Of  Crimes  and  Punishments         -  153 

10.  Of  Religious  Establishments,  and  Toleration  173 

11.  Of  Population   and  Provision;  and  of  Agri- 

culture   and   Commerce,    as    subservient 
thereto  ----.-  197 

12.  Of  War,  and  of  Military  Establishments       -  232 


BOOK  IV. 


DUTIES    TO  OURSELVES. 

THIS  division  of  the  subject  is  retained  merely  for 
the  sake  of  method,  by  which  the  writer  and  the 
reader  are  equally  assisted.  To  the  subject  itself,  it 
imports  nothing;  for,  the  obligation  of  all  duties  being 
fundamentally  the  same,  it  matters  little  under  what 
class  or  title  any  of  them  are  considered.  In  strict- 
ness, there  are  few  duties  or  crimes  which  terminate 
in  a  man's  self;  and  so  far  as  others  are  affected  by 
their  operation,  they  have  been  treated  of  in  some  ar- 
ticle of  the  preceding  book.  We  have  reserved, 
however,  to  this  head  the  rights  of  self-defence  ;  also 
the  consideration  of  drunkenness  and  suicide,  as  of- 
fences against  that  care  of  our  faculties,  and  preser- 
vation of  our  persons,  which  we  account  duties,  and 
call  duties  to  ourselves. 

voi*%  n.  1  * 


RIGHTS  OF  iELF-DEFENCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   RIGHTS  OF  SELF-DEFENCE. 

IT  has  been  asserted,  that  in  a  state  of  nature  we 
might  lawfully  defend  the  most  insignificant  right, 
provided  it  were  a  perfect  determinate  right,  by  any 
extremities  which  the  obstinacy  of  the  aggressor  ren- 
dered necessary.  Of  this  I  doubt;  because  I  doubt 
whether  the  general  rule  be  worth  sustaining  at  such 
an  expense;  and  because,  apart  from  the  general  oon- 
sequence  of  yielding  to  the  attempt,  it  cannot  be  w>n- 
tended  to  be  for  the  augmentation  of  human  happi- 
ness that  one  man  should  lose  his  life,  or  a  limb, 
rather  than  another  a  pennyworth  of  his  property. 
Nevertheless,  perfect  rights  can  only  be  distinguished 
by  their  value;  and  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  the 
value  at  which  the  liberty  of  using  extreme  violence 
begins.  The  person  attacked  must  balance,  as  well 
as  he  can,  between  the  general  consequence  of  yield- 
ing and  the  particular  effect  of  resistance. 

However,  this  right,  if  it  exist  in  a  state  of  nature, 
is  suspended  by  the  establishment  of  civil  society; 
because  thereby  other  remedies  are  provided  against 
attacks  upon  our  property,  and  because  it  is  necessary 
to  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  community,  that  the 
prevention,  punishment,  and  redress  of  injuries  be  ad- 
justed by  public  laws.  Moreover,  as  the  individual 
is  assisted  in  the  recovery  of  his  right,  or  of  a  com- 
pensation for  his  right  by  the  public  strength,  it  is  no 
less  equitable  than  expedient,  that  he  should  submit 
to  public  arbitration,  the  kind,  as  well  as  the  measure, 
of  the  satisfaction  which  he  is  to  obtain. 

There  is  one  case  in  which  all  extremities  are  jus- 
tifiable; namely,  when  our  life  is  assaulted,  and  it  be- 
comes necessary  for  our  preservation  to  kill  the  as- 
sailant. This  is  evident  in  a  state  of  nature;  unless 
it  can  be  shown,  that  we  are  bound  to  prefer  the  ag- 
gressor's life  to  our  own,  that  is  to  say,  to  love  our 
enemy  better  than  ourselves,  which  can  ne^er  be  a 
debt  of  justice,  nor  any  where  appears  to  be  a  duty 


SELF-DEFENCE.  7 

of  charity.  Nor  is  the  case  altered  by  our  living  in 
civil  society;  because,  by  the  supposition,  the  laws  of 
society  cannot  interpose  to  protect  us,  nor,  by  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  compel  restitution.  This  liberty  is 
restrained  to  cases  in  which  no  other  probable  means 
of  preserving  our  life  remain,  as  flight,  calling  for 
assistance,  disarming  the  adversary,  &c.  The  rule 
holds,  whether  the  danger  proceed  from  a  voluntary 
attack,  as  by  an  enemy,  robber,  or  assassin;  or  from 
an  involuntary  one,  as  by  a  madman,  or  person  sink- 
ing in  the  water,  and  dragging  us  after  him;  or  where 
two  persons  are  reduced  to  a  situation  in  which  one 
or  both  of  them  must  perish;  as  in  a  shipwreck,  where 
two  seize  upon  a  plank,  which  will  support  only  one; 
although,  to  say  the  truth,  these  extreme  cases,  which 
happen  seldom,  and  hardly,  when  they  do  happen, 
admit  of  moral  agency,  are  scarcely  worth  mention- 
ing, much  less  discussing  at  length. 

The  instance  which  approaches  the  nearest  to  the 
preservation  of  life,  and  which  seems  to  justify  the 
same  extremities,  is  the  defence  of  chastity. 

In  all  other  cases,  it  appears  to  me  the  safest  to  con- 
sider the  taking  away  of  life  as  authorized  by  the  law 
of  the  land;  and  the  person  who  takes  it  away,  as  in 
the  situation  of  a  minister  or  executioner  of  the  law. 

In  which  view,  homicide,  in  England,  is  justifi- 
able,— 

1.  To   prevent   the   commission  of  a  crime,  which, 
when  committed,   would   be   punishable   with   death. 
Thus,   it  is  lawful  to  shoot  a  highwayman,  or  one  at- 
tempting to  break   into  a  house  by  night;  but  not  so 
if  the   attempt  be  made  in  the  daytime:  which  parti- 
cular distinction,   by  a  consent   of  legislation  that  is 
remarkable,  obtained  also  in  the  Jewish  law,  as  well 
as  in  the  laws  both  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

2.  In   necessary  endeavours   to  carry  the  law  into 
execution:  as  in  suppressing  riots,  apprehending  male- 
factors, preventing  escapes,  &c. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  law  holds  forth  its  authority 
to  any  cases  besides  those  which  fall  within  one  or 
other  of  the  above  descriptions;  or  that,  after  the  ex* 


DRUNKENNESS. 


ception  of  immediate  danger  to  life  or  chastity,  th« 
destruction  of  a  human  being  can  be  innocent  with- 
out that  authority. 

The  rights  of  war  are  not  here  taken  into  the  ac- 
count. 


CHAPTER  II 

DRUNKENNESS. 

DRUNKENNESS  is  either  actual  or  habitual;  just  as 
it  is  one  thing  to  be  drunk,  and  another  to  be  a  drun- 
kard. What  we  shall  deliver  upon  the  subject  must 
principally  be  understood  of  a  habit  of  intemperance; 
although  part  of  the  guilt  and  danger  described  may 
be  applicable  to  casual  excesses;  and  all  of  it,  in  a 
certain  degree,  forasmuch  as  every  habit  is  only  a  re- 
petition of  single  instances. 

The  mischief  of  drunkenness,  from  which  we  are  to 
compute  the  guilt  of  it,  consists  in  the  following  bad 
effects: — 

1.  It  betrays  most  constitutions  either  to   extrava- 
gances of  anger  or  sins  of  lewdness. 

2.  It  disqualifies  men  for  the  duties  of  their  station, 
both   by  the  temporary  disorder  of  their  faculties,  and 
at  length  by  a  constant  incapacity  and  stupefaction. 

3.  It  is  attended  with  expenses,  which  can  often  be 
ill  spared. 

4.  It  is  sure  to  occasion  uneasiness  to  the  family  of 
the  drunkard. 

5.  It  shortens  life. 

To  these  consequences  of  drunkenness  must  be  ad- 
ded the  peculiar  danger  and  mischief  of  the  example. 
Drunkenness  is  a  social  festive  vice;  apt,  beyond  any 
vice  than  can  be  mentioned,  to  draw  in  others  by  the  ex- 
ample. The  drinker  collects  his  circle ;  the  circle  natur- 
ally spreads;  of  those  who  are  drawn  within  it,  many 
become  the  corrupters  and  centres  of  sets  and  circles 
of  their  own;  every  one  countenancing,  and  perhaps 


DRUNKENNESS.  9 

emulating  the  rest,  till  a  whole  neighbourhood  be  in- 
fected from  the  contagion  of  a  single  example.  This 
account  is  confirmed  by  what  we  often  observe  of 
drunkenness,  that  it  is  a  local  vice;  found  to  prevail 
in  certain  countries,  in  certain  districts  of  a  country, 
or  in  particular  towns,  without  any  reason  to  be  given 
for  the  fashion,  but  that  it  had  been  introduced  by  some 
popular  examples.  With  this  observation  upon  the 
spreading  quality  of  drunkenness,  let  us  connect  a 
remark  which  belongs  to  the  several  evil  effects  above 
recited.  The  consequences  of  a  vice,  like  the  symp- 
toms of  a  disease,  though  they  be  all  enumerated  in 
the  description,  seldom  all  meet  in  the  same  subject. 
In  the  instance  under  consideration,  the  age  and  tem- 
perature of  one  drunkard  may  have  little  to  fear  from 
inflammations  of  lust  or  anger;  the  fortune  of  a  second 
may  not  be  injured  by  the  expense;  a  third  may  have 
no  family  to  be  disquieted  by  his  irregularities;  and  a 
fourth  may  possess  a  constitution  fortified  against  the 
poison  of  strong  liquors.  But  if,  as  we  always  ought 
to  do,  we  comprehend  within  the  consequences  of  our 
conduct  the  mischief  and  tendency  of  the  example, 
the  above  circumstances,  however  fortunate  for  the 
individual,  will  be  found  to  vary  the  guilt  of  his  intem- 
perance less,  probably,  than  he  supposes.  The  mor- 
alist may  expostulate  with  him  thus:  Although  the 
waste  of  time  and  of  money  be  of  small  importance 
to  you,  it  may  be  of  the  utmost  to  some  one  or  other 
whom  your  society  corrupts.  Repeated  or  long  con- 
tinued excesses,  which  hurt  not  your  health,  may  be 
fatal  to  your  companion.  Although  you  have  neither 
wife,  nor  child,  nor  parent  to  lament  your  absence 
from  home,  or  expect  your  return  to  it  with  terror; 
other  families,  in  which  husbands  and  fathers  have 
been  invited  to  share  in  your  ebriety,  or  encouraged  to 
imitate  it,  may  justly  lay  their  misery  or  ruin  at  your 
door.  This  will  hold  good  whether  the  person  sedu- 
ced be  seduced  immediately  by  you,  or  the  vice  be 
prop  igated  from  you  to  him  through  several  interme- 
diate examples.  All  these  considerations  it  is  neces- 
sary to  assemble,  to  judge  truly  of  a  vice  which  usu- 


10  DRUNKENNESS. 

ally  meets  with  milder  names  and  more  indulgence 
than  it  deserves. 

I  omit  those  outrages  upon  one  another,  and  upon 
the  peace  and  safety  of  the  neighbourhood,  in  which 
drunken  revels  often  end;  and  also  those  deleterious 
and  maniacal  effects  which  strong  liquors  produce 
upon  particular  constitutions;  because,  in  general 
propositions  concerning  drunkenness,  no  consequences 
should  be  included,  but  what  are  constant  enough  to 
be  generally  expected. 

Drunkenness  is  repeatedly  forbidden  by  St.  Paul: 
"  Be  not  drunk  with  wine,  wherein  is  excess."  "  Let 
us  walk  honestly  as  in  the  day,  not  in  rioting  and 
drunkenness."  "Be  not  deceived:  neither  fornica- 
tors,  nor  drunkards,  nor  revilers,  nor  extortioners 
shall  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  Eph.  v.  18; 
Rom.  xiii.  13;  1  Cor.  vi.  9,  10.  The  same  apostle 
likewise  condemns  drunkenness,  as  peculiarly  incon- 
sistent with  the  Christian  profession: — •'  They  that 
be  drunken  are  drunken  in  the  night:  but  let  us, 
who  are  of  the  day,  be  sober."  1  Thes.  v.  7,  8.  We 
are  not  concerned  with  the  argument;  the  words 
amount  to  a  prohibition  of  drunkenness;  and  the  au- 
thority is  conclusive. 

It  is  a  question  of  some  importance,  how  far  drunk- 
enness is  an  excuse  for  the  crimes  which  the  drunken 
person  commits. 

In  the  solution  of  this  question,  we  will  first  sup- 
pose the  drunken  person  to  be  altogether  deprived  of 
moral  agency,  that  is  to  say,  of  all  reflection  and  fore- 
sight. In  this  condition,  it  is  evident  that  he  is  no 
more  capable  of  guilt  than  a  madman;  although,  like 
him,  he  may  be  extremely  mischievous.  The  only 
guilt  with  which  he  is  chargeable  was  incurred  at 
the  time  when  he  voluntarily  brought  himself  into 
this  situation.  And  as  every  man  is  responsible  for 
the  consequences  which  he  foresaw,  or  might  have 
foreseen,  and  for  no  other,  this  guilt  will  be  in  pro- 
portion to  the  probability  of  such  consequences  ensu- 
ing. From  which  principle  results  the  following  rule, 
viz.  that  the  guilt  of  any  action  in  a  drunken  man 
bears  the  same  proportion  to  the  guilt  of  the  like 


DRUNKENNESS.  11 

action  in  a  sober  man,  that  the  probability  of  its  being 
the  consequence  of  drunkenness  bears  to  absolute  cer~ 
tainty.  By  virtue  of  this  rule,  those  vices  which  are 
the  known  effects  of  drunkenness,  either  in  general, 
or  upon  particular  constitutions,  are  in  all,  or  in  men 
of  such  constitutions,  nearly  as  criminal  as  ;f  commit 
ted  with  all  their  faculties  and  senses  about  them. 

If  the  privation  of  reason  be  only  partial,  the  guilt 
will  be  of  a  mixed  nature.  For  so  much  of  his  self- 
government  as  the  drunkard  retains,  he  is  as  respon- 
sible then  as  at  any  other  time.  He  is  entitled  to  no 
abatement  beyond  the  strict  proportion  in  which  his 
moral  faculties  are  impaired.  Now  I  call  the  guilt 
of  the  crime,  if  a  sober  man  had  committed  it,  the 
whole  guilt.  A  person  in  the  condition  we  describe 
incurs  part  of  this  at  the  instant  of  perpetration;  and 
by  bringing  himself  into  that  condition,  he  incurred 
such  a  fraction  of  the  remaining  part,  as  the  danger 
of  this  consequence  was  of  an  integral  certainty.  For 
the  sake  of  illustration  we  are  at  liberty  to  suppose, 
that  a  man  loses  half  his  moral  faculties  by  drunken- 
ness; this  leaving  him  but  half  his  responsibility,  he 
incurs,  when  he  commits  the  action,  half  of  the 
whole  guilt.  "We  will  also  suppose  that  it  was  known 
beforehand,  that  it  was  an  even  chance,  or  half  a  cer- 
tainty, that  this  crime  would  follow  his  getting  drunk 
This  makes  him  chargeable  with  half  of  the  remain- 
der; so  that,  altogether,  he  is  responsible  in  three 
fourths  of  the  guilt  which  a  sober  man  would  have 
incurred  in  the  same  action. 

I  do  not  mean  that  any  real  case  can  be  reduced  to 
numbers,  or  the  calculation  be  ever  made  with  arith- 
matical  precision;  but  these  are  the  principles,  and 
this  the  rule  by  which  our  general  admeasurement  of 
the  guilt  of  such  offences  should  be  regulated. 

The  appetite  for  intoxicating  liquors  appears  to  me 
to  be  almost  always  acquired.  One  proof  of  which 
is,  that  it  is  apt  to  return  only  at  particular  times  and 
places;  as  after  dinner,  in  the  evening,  on  the  market 
day,  at  the  market  town,  in  such  a  company,  at  such 
a  tavern.  And  this  may  be  the  reason  that,  if  a  habit 
of  drunkenness  be  ever  overcome,  it  is  upon  some 


12  DRUNKENNESS 

change  of  place,  situation,  company,  or  profession. 
A  man  sunk  deep  in  a  habit  of  drunkenness  will,  upon 
such  occasions  as  these,  when  he  finds  himself  loosen- 
ed from  the  associations  which  held  him  fast,  some- 
times make  a  plunge,  and  get  out.  In  a  matter  of  so 
great  importance,  it  is  well  worth  while,  where  it  is 
in  any  degree  practicable,  to  change  our  habitation 
and  society,  for  the  sake  of  the  experiment. 

Habits  of  drunkenness  commonly  take  their  rise 
either  from  a  fondness  for,  and  connexion  with,  some 
company,  or  some  companion,  already  addicted  to  this 
practice;  which  affords  an  almost  irresistable  invita- 
tion to  take  a  share  in  the  indulgences  which  those 
about  us  are  enjoying  with  so  much  apparent  relish 
and  delight;  or  from  want  of  regular  employment, 
which  is  sure  to  let  in  many  superfluous  cravings  and 
customs,  and  often  this  amongst  the  rest;  or,  lastly, 
from  grief  or  fatigue,  both  which  strongly  solicit  that 
relief  which  inebriating  liquors  administer,  and  also 
furnish  a  specious  excuse  for  complying  with  the  in- 
clination. But  the  habit,  when  once  set  in,  is  con- 
tinued by  different  motives  from  those  to  which  it 
owes  its  origin.  Persons  addicted  to  excessive  drink- 
ing suffer,  in  the  intervals  of  sobriety,  and  near  the 
return  of  their  accustomed  indulgence,  a  faintness  and 
oppression  circa  prcecordia,  which  it  exceeds  the  or- 
dinary patience  of  human  nature  to  endure.  This  is 
usually  relieved  for  a  short  time  by  a  repetition  of  the 
same  excess;  and  to  this  relief,  as  to  the  removal  of 
every  long  continued  pain,  they  who  have  once  expe- 
rienced it,  are  urged  almost  beyond  the  power  of  re- 
sistance. This  is  not  all:  as  the  liquor  loses  its  sti- 
mulus, the  dose  must  be  increased,  to  reach  the  same 
pitch  of  elevation  or  ease;  which  increase  proportion- 
ably  accelerates  the  progress  ©f  all  the  maladies  that 
drunkenness  brings  on.  Whoever  reflects  upon  the 
violence  of  the  craving  in  the  advanced  stages  of  the 
habit,  and  the  fatal  termination  to  which  the  gratifica- 
tion of  it  leads,  will,  the  moment  he  perceives  in  him- 
self the  first  symptoms  of  a  growing  inclination  to 
intemperance,  collect  his  resolution  to  this  point;  or 
(what  perhaps  he  will  find  his  best  security)  arm  him- 


SUICIDE.  13 

self  with  some  peremptory  rule,  as  to  the  times  and 
quantity  of  his  indulgences.  I  own  myself  a  friend 
to  the  laying  down  of  rules  to  ourselves  of  this  sort, 
and  rigidly  abiding  by  them.  They  may  be  exclaim- 
ed against  as  stiff,  but  they  are  often  salutary.  Inde- 
finite resolutions  of  abstemiousness  are  apt  to  yield  to 
extraordinary  occasions;  and  extraordinary  occa- 
sions to  occur  perpetually.  Whereas,  the  stricter  the 
rule  is,  the  more  tenacious  we  grow  of  it;  and  many 
a  man  will  abstain  rather  than  break  his  rule,  who 
would  not  easily  be  brought  to  excercise  the  same  mor- 
tification from  higher  motives.  Not  to  mention,  that 
when  our  rule  is  once  known,  we  are  provided  with 
an  answer  to  ever  importunity. 

There  is  a  difference,  no  doubt,  between  convivial 
intemperance,  and  that  solitary  sottishness  which 
waits  neither  for  company  nor  invitation.  But  the 
one,  I  am  afraid,  commonly  ends  in  the  other;  and 
this  last  in  the  basest  degradation  to  which  the  facul- 
ties and  dignity  of  human  nature  can  be  reduced. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SUICIDE. 

THERE  is  no  subject  in  morality  in  which  the  con- 
sideration of  general  consequences  is  more  necessary 
than  in  this  of  suicide.  Particular  and  extreme  cases 
of  suicide  may  be  imagined,  and  may  arise,  of  which 
it  would  be  difficult  to  assign  the  particular  mischief, 
or  from  that  consideration  alone  to  demonstrate  the 
guilt;  and  these  cases  have  been  the  chief  occasion 
of  confusion  and  doubtfulness  in  the  question;  albeit 
this  is  no  more  than  what  is  sometimes  true  of  the 
most  acknowledged  vices.  I  could  propose  many 
possible  cases  even  of  murder,  which,  if  they  were 
detached  from  the  general  rule,  and  governed  by  their 
own  particular  consequences  alone,  it  would  be  no 
easy  undertaking  to  prove  criminal. 

VOL..   II.  2 


14  SUICIDE. 

The  true  question  in  this  argument  is  no  other  than 
this:  May  every  man  who  chooses  to  destroy  his  life, 
innocently  do  so  ?  Limit  and  distinguish  the  subject 
as  you  can,  it  will  come  at  last  to  this  question. 

For  shall  we  say,  that  we  are  then  at  liberty  to 
commit  suicide  when  we  find  our  continuance  in  life 
become  useless  to  mankind  ?  Any  one  who  pleases 
may  make  himself  useless;  and  melancholy  minds 
are  prone  to  think  themselves  useless,  when  they 
really  are  not  so.  Suppose  a  law  were  promulgated, 
allowing  each  private  person  to  destroy  every  man  he 
met,  whose  longer  continuance  in  the  world  he  judged 
to  be  useless;  who  would  not  condemn  the  latitude 
of  such  a  rule  ?  who  does  not  perceive  that  it  amounts 
to  a  permission  to  commit  murder  at  pleasure  ?  A 
similar  rule,  regulating  the  right  over  our  own  lives, 
•would  be  capable  of  the  same  extension.  Beside 
which,  no  one  is  useless  for  the  purpose  of  this  plea, 
but  he  who  has  lost  every  capacity  and  opportunity 
of  being  useful,  together  with  the  possibility  of  re- 
covering any  degree  of  either;  which  is  a  state  of 
such  complete  destitution  and  despair  as  cannot,  I 
believe,  be  predicated  of  any  man  living. 

Or  rather,  shall  we  say,  that  to  depart  voluntarily 
out  of  life  is  lawful  for  tiiose  alone  who  leave  none  to 
lament  their  death  ?  If  this  consideration  is  to  be 
taken  into  the  account  at  all,  the  subject  of  debate 
will  be,  not  whether  there  are  any  to  sorrow  for  us, 
but  whether  their  sorrow  for  our  death  will  exceed  that 
which  we  should  suffer  by  continuing  to  live.  Now 
this  is  a  comparison  of  things  so  indeterminate  in  their 
nature,  capable  of  so  different  a  judgment,  and  con- 
cerning which  the  judgment  will  differ  so  much  ac- 
cording to  the  state  of  the  spirits,  or  the  pressure  of 
any  present  anxiety,  that  it  would  vary  little,  in  hypo- 
chondriacal  constitutions,  from  an  unqualified  licence 
to  commit  suicide,  whenever  Hie  distresses  which  men 
felt,  or  fancied,  rose  high  enough  to  overcome  the 
pain  and  dread  of  death.  Men  are  never  tempted  to 
destroy  themselves  but  when  under  the  oppression  of 
*mne  grievous  uneasiness:  the  restrictions  of  the  rule 
therefore  ought  to  apply  to  these  cases.  But  what 


SUICIDE.  15 

effect  can  we  look  for  from  a  rule  which  proposes  to 
weigh  our  pain  against  that  of  another;  the  misery 
that  is  felt,  against  that  which  is  only  conceived;  and 
in  so  corrupt  a  balance  as  the  party's  own  distemper- 
ed imagination. 

In  like  manner,  whatever  other  rule  you  assign,  it 
will  ultimately  bring  us  to  an  indiscriminate  toleration 
of  suicide,  in  all  cases  in  which  there  is  danger  of  its 
being  committed.  It  remains,  therefore,  to  inquire 
what  would  be  the  effect  of  such  a  toleration?  evi- 
dently the  loss  of  many  lives  to  the  community,  of 
which  some  might  be  useful  or  important;  the  afflic- 
tion of  many  families,  and  the  consternation  of  all. 
for  mankind  must  live  in  continual  alarm  for  the  fate 
of  their  friends  and  dearest  relations,  when  the  re- 
straints of  religion  and  morality  are  withdrawn;  when 
every  disgust  which  is  powerful  enough  to  tempt 
men  to  suicide,  shall  be  deemed  sufficient  to  justify  it; 
and  when  the  follies  and  vices,  as  well  as  the  inevita- 
ble calamities  of  human  life,  so  often  make  existence 
a  burden. 

A  second  consideration,  and  perfectly  distinct  from 
the  former,  is  this:  By  continuing  in  the  world,  and 
in  the  exercise  of  those  virtues  which  remain  within 
our  power,  we  retain  the  opportunity  of  meliorating 
our  condition  in  a  future  state.  This  argument,  it  is 
true,  does  not  in  strictness  prove  suicide  to  be  a 
crime;  but  if  it  supply  a  motive  to  dissuade  us  from 
committing  it,  it  amounts  to  much  the  same  thing. 
Now  there  is  no  condition  in  human  life  which  is  not 
capable  of  some  virtue,  active  or  passive.  Even  piety 
and  resignation  under  the  sufferings  to  which  we  are 
called,  testify  a  trust  and  acquiescence  in  the  Divine 
counsels,  more  acceptable,  perhaps,  than  the  most 
prostrate  devotion ;  afford  an  edifying  example  to  all 
who  observe  them;  and  may  hope  for  a  recompence 
among  the  most  arduous  of  human  virtues.  These 
qualities  are  always  in  the  power  of  the  miserable; 
indeed  of  none  but  the  miserable. 

The  two  considerations  above  stated  belong  to  all 
cases  of  suicide  whatever*  Besides  which  general 
reasons,  each  case  will  be  aggravated  by  its  own  pro-* 


16  SUICIDE. 

per  and  particular  consequences;  by  the  duties  that 
are  deserted;  by  the  claims  that  are  defrauded;  by 
the  loss,  affliction,  or  disgrace,  which  our  death,  or  the 
manner  of  it,  causes  our  family,  kindred,  or  friends; 
by  the  occasion  we  give  to  many  to  suspect  the  sin- 
cerity of  our  moral  and  religious  professions,  and,  to- 
gether with  ours,  those  of  all  others;  by  the  reproach 
we  draw  upon  our  order,  calling,  or  sect;  in  a  word, 
by  a  great  variety  of  evil  consequences  at  tending  upon 
peculiar  situations,  with  some  or  ether  of  which  every 
actual  case  of  suicide  is  chargeable. 

I  refrain  from  the  common  topics  of  *'  deserting  our 
post/'  "  throwing  up  our  trust,"  "rushing  uncalled 
into  the  presence  of  our  Maker,'*  with  some  others  of 
the  same  sort,  not  because  they  are  common  (for  that 
rather  affords  a  presumption  in  their  favour,)  but  be- 
cause I  do  not  perceive  in  them  much  argument  to 
which  an  answer  may  not  easily  be  given. 

Hitherto  we  have  pursued  upon  the  subject  the 
light  of  nature  alone;  taking,  however,  into  the  ac- 
count the  expectation  of  a  future  existence,  without 
which  our  reasoning  upon  this,  as  indeed  all  reasoning 
upon  moral  questions,  is  vain;  we  proceed  to  inquire, 
whether  any  thing  is  to  be  met  with  in  Scripture, 
which  may  add  to  the  probability  of  the  conclusions 
we  have  been  endeavouring  to  support.  And  here  I 
acknowledge,  that  there  is  to  be  found  neither  any  ex- 
press determination  of  the  question,  nor  sufficient  evi- 
dence to  prove  that  the  case  of  suicide  was  in  the 
contemplation  of  the  law  which  prohibited  murder. 
Any  inference,  therefore,  which  we  deduce  from 
Scripture  can  be  sustained  only  by  construction  and 
implication:  that  is  to  say,  although  they  who  were 
authorized  to  instruct  mankind  have  not  decided  a  ques- 
tion which  never,  so  far  as  appears  to  us,  came  before 
them;  yet,  I  think,  they  have  left  enough  to  consti- 
tute a  presumption  how  they  would  have  decided  it, 
had  it  been  proposed  or  thought  of. 

"What  occurs  to  this  purpose  is  contained  in  the  fol- 
lowing observations. 

1.  Human  life  is  spoken  of  as  a  term  assigned  or 
prescribed  to  us:  Let  us  run  with  patience  the  race 


SUICIDE.  17 

that  is  set  before  us." — "  I  have  finished  my  course." 
— "  That  I  may  finish  my  course  with  joy." — "  Ye 
have  need  of  patience,  that,  after  ye  have  done  the 
will  of  God,  ye  might  receive  the  promise." — These 
expressions  appear  to  me  inconsistent  with  the  opi- 
nion, that  we  are  at  liberty  to  determine  the  duration 
of  our  lives  for  ourselves.  If  this  were  the  case,  with 
what  propriety  could  life  be  called  a  race  that  is  set 
before  us ;  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  **  our  course ;" 
that  is,  the  course  Let  out  or  appointed  to  us  ?  The 
remaining  quotation  is  equally  strong; — "  That,  after 
ye  have  done  the  will  of  God,  ye  might  receive  the 
promise."  The  most  natural  meaning  that  can  be 
given  to  the  words,  "  after  ye  have  done  the  will  of 
God,"  is,  after  ye  have  discharged  the  duties  of  life  so 
long  as  God  is  pleased  to  continue  you  in  it.  Accord- 
ing to  which  interpretation,  the  text  militates  strongly 
against  suicide:  and  they  who  reject  this  paraphrase, 
will  please  to  propose  a  better. 

2.  There  is  not  one  quality  which  Christ  and  his 
apostles  inculcate  upon  their  followers  so  often,  or  so 
earnestly,  as  that  of  patience  under  affliction.  Now 
this  virtue  would  have  been  in  a  great  measure  super- 
seded, and  the  exhortations  to  it  might  have  been 
spared,  if  the  disciples  of  his  religion  had  been  at 
liberty  to  quit  the  world  as  soon  they  grew  weary 
of  the  ill  usage  which  they  received  in  it.  When  the 
evils  of  life  pressed  sore,  they  were  to  look  forward  to 
a  "  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory:" 
they  were  to  receive  them  as  **  chastenings  of  the 
Lord,"  as  intimations  of  his  care  and  love:  by  these 
and  the  like  reflections  they  were  to  support  and  im- 
prove themselves  under  their  sufferings:  but  not  a 
hint  has  any  where  escaped  of  seeking  relief  in  a 
voluntary  death.  The  following  text  in  particular, 
strongly  combats  all  impatience  of  distress,  of  which 
the  greatest  is  that  which  prompts  to  acts  of  suicide: 
— "  Consider  him  that  endured  such  contradiction  of 
sinners  against  himself,  lest  ye  be  wearied  and  faint  in 
your  mfnds."  I  would  offer  my  comment  upon  this 
passage,  in  these  two  queries:  first,  whether  a  Chris- 
tian convert,  who  had  been  impelled  by  the  continu- 

VOLu    II.  2  * 


18  SUICIDE. 

ance  and  urgency  or  his  sufferings  to  destroy  his  own 
life,  would  not  have  been  thought  by  the  author  of 
this  text  "  to  have  been  weary,"  to  have  "  fainted  in 
his  mind,"  to  have  fallen  off  from  that  example  which 
is  here  proposed  to  the  meditation  of  Christians  in 
distress  ?  And  yet,  secondly,  Whether  such  an  act 
would  not  have  been  attended  with  all  the  circum- 
stances of  mitigation  which  can  excuse  or  extenuate 
suicide  at  this  day  ? 

3.  The  conduct  of  the  apostles,  and  of  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  apostolic  age,  affords  no  obscure  indica- 
tion of  their  sentiments  upon  this  point.  They  lived, 
we  are  sure,  in  a  confirmed  persuasion  of  the  exist- 
ence, as  well  as  of  the  happiness,  of  a  future  state. 
They  experienced  in  this  world  every  extremity  of  ex- 
ternal injury  and  distress.  To  die  was  gain.  The 
change  which  death  brought  with  it  was,  in  their  ex- 
pectation, infinitely  beneficial.  Yet  it  never,  that  we 
can  find,  entered  into  the  intention  of  one  of  them  to 
hasten  this  change  by  an  act  of  suicide;  from  which 
it  is  difficult  to  say  what  motive  could  have  so  univer- 
sally withheld  them,  except  an  apprehension  of  some 
unlawfulness  in  the  expedient. 

Having  stated  what  we  have  been  able  to  collect  in 
opposition  to  the  lawfulness  of  suicide,  by  way  of 
direct  proof,  it  seems  unnecessary  to  open  a  separate 
controversy  with  all  the  arguments  which  are  made 
use  of  to  defend  it;  which  would  only  lead  us  into  a 
repetition  of  what  has  bctn  offered  already.  The  fol- 
lowing argument,  however,  being  somewhat  more  ar- 
tificial and  imposing  than  the  rest,  as  well  as  distinct 
from  the  general  consideration  of  the  subject,  cannot 
so  properly  be  passed  over.  If  we  deny  to  the  indi- 
vidual a  right  over  his  own  life,  it  seems  impossible, 
it  is  said,  to  reconcile  with  the  law  of  nature  that  right 
which  the  state  claims  and  exercises  over  the  lives  of 
its  subjects,  when  it  ordains  or  inflicts  capital  punish- 
ments. For  this  right,  like  all  other  just  authority  in 
the  state,  can  only  be  derived  from  the  compact  and 
virtual  consent  of  the  citizens  which  compose  the 
state;  and  it  seems  self  evident,  if  any  principle  in 
morality  be  so,  that  no  one,  by  his  consent,  can  trans- 


SUICIDE.  19 

fer  to  another  a  right  which  he  does  not  possess  him- 
self. It  will  be  equally  difficult  to  account  for  the 
power  of  the  state  to  commit  its  subjects  to  the  dan- 
gers of  war,  and  to  expose  their  lives  without  scruple 
in  the  field  of  battle;  especially  inoffensive  hostilities, 
in  which  the  privileges  of  self  defence  cannot  be 
pleaded  with  any  appearance  of  truth;  and  still  more 
difficult  to  explain  how  in  such,  or  in  any  circum- 
stances, prodigality  of  life  can  be  a  virtue,  if  the  pre- 
servation of  it  be  a  duty  of  our  nature. 

This  whole  reasoning  sets  out  from  one  error, 
namely,  that  the  state  acquires  its  right  over  the  life 
of  the  subject  from  the  subject's  own  consent,  as  a 
part  of  what  originally  and  personally  belonged  to 
himself,  and  which  he  has  made  over  to  his  governors. 
The  truth  is,  the  state  derives  this  right  neither  from 
the  consent  of  the  subject,  nor  through  the  medium 
of  that  consent;  but,  as  I  may  say,  immediately  from 
the  donation  of  the  Deity.  Finding  that  such  a 
power  in  the  sovereign  of  the  community  is  expedient, 
if  not  necessary,  for  the  community  itself,  it  is  justly 
presumed  to  be  the  will  of  God,  that  the  sovereign 
should  possess  and  exercise  Jt.  It  is  this  presumption 
which  constitutes  the  right;  it  is  the  same  indeed 
which  constitutes  every  other:  and  if  there  were  the 
like  reasons  to  authorize  the  presumption  in  the  case 
of  private  persons,  suicide  would  be  as  justifiable  as 
war  or  capital  executions.  But  until  it  can  be  shown 
that  the  power  over  human  life  may  be  converted  to 
the  same  advantage  in  the  hands  of  individuals  over 
their  own,  as  in  those  of  the  state  over  the  lives  of  its 
subjects,  and  that  it  may  be  intrusted  with  equal  safety 
to  both,  there  is  no  room  for  arguing,  from  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  right  in  the  latter,  to  the  toleration  of 
it  in  the  former. 


BOOK  V 

DUTIES  TOWARDS  GOD. 


CHAPTER  I. 

DIVISION  OF  THESE  DUTIES 

IN  one  sense,  every  duty  is  a  duty  towards  God, 
since  it  is  his  will  which  makes  it  a  duty:  but  there 
are  some  duties  of  which  God  is  the  object  as  well  as 
the  author;  and  these  are  peculiarly,  and  in  a  more 
appropriated  sense,  called  duties  towards  God. 

That  silent  piety,  which  consists  in  a  habit  of 
tracing  out  the  Creator's  wisdom  and  goodness  in  the 
objects  around  us,  or  in  the  history  of  his  dispensa- 
tions; of  referring  the  blessings  we  enjoy  to  his 
bounty,  and  of  resorting  in  our  distresses  to  his  suc- 
cour; may  possibly  be  more  acceptable  to  the  Deity 
than  any  visible  expressions  of  devotion  whatever. 
Yet  these  latter  (which  although  they  may  be  ex- 
celled, are  not  superseded,  by  the  former)  compose  the 
only  part  of  the  subject  which  admits  of  direction  or 
disquisition  from  a  moralist. 

Our  duty  towards  God,  so  far  as  it  is  external,  is 
divided  into  worship  and  reverence.  God  is  the  im- 
mediate object  of  both;  and  the  difference  between 
them  is,  that  the  one  consists  in  action,  the  other  in 
forbearance.  When  we  go  to  church  on  the  Lord's 
day,  led  thither  by  a  sense  of  duty  towards  God,  we 
perform  an  act  of  worship;  when,  from  the  same  mo- 
tive, we  rest  in  a  journey  upon  that  day,  we  discharge 
a  duty  )f  reverence. 


DUTY  AND  EFFICACY   OF  PRAYER.  21 

Divine  worship  is  made  up  of  adoration,  thanks- 
giving, and  prayer. — But,  as  what  we  have  to  offer 
concerning  the  two  former  may  be  observed  of  prayer, 
we  shall  make  that  the  title  of  the  following  chapters, 
and  the  direct  subject  of  our  consideration. 


CHAPTER  II. 

OF  THE  DUTY  AND  OF  THE  EFFICACY  OF  PRAYER, 
SO  FAR  AS  THE  SAME  APPEAR  FROM  THE  LIGHT 
OF  NATURE. 

WHEN  one  man  desires  to  obtain  any  thing  of  ano- 
ther, he  betakes  himself  to  entreaty;  and  this  may  be 
observed  of  mankind  in  all  ages  and  countries  of  the 
world.  Now  what  is  universal  may  be  called  natu- 
ral; and  it  seems  probable  that  God,  as  our  supreme 
governor,  should  expect  that  towards  himself  which, 
by  a  natural  impulse,  or  by  the  irresistable  order  of  our 
constitution,  he  has  prompted  us  to  pay  to  every  other 
being  on  whom  we  depend. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  thanksgiving. 

Prayer  likewise  is  necessary  to  keep  up  in  the  minds 
of  mankind  a  sense  of  God's  agency  in  the  universe, 
and  of  their  own  dependency  upon  him. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  duty  of  prayer  depends  upon  its 
efficacy:  for  I  confess  myself  unable  to  conceive,  how 
any  man  can  pray,  or  be  obliged  to  pray,  who  expects 
nothing  from  his  prayer;  but  who  is  persuaded,  at 
the  time  he  utters  his  request,  that  it  cannot  possibly 
produce  the  smallest  impression  upon  the  Being  to 
whom  it  is  addressed,  or  advantage  to  himself.  Now 
the  efficacy  of  prayer  imports  that  we  obtain  some- 
thing in  consequence  of  praying,  which  we  should  not 
have  received  without  prayer;  against  all  expectation 
of  which,  the  following  objection  has  been  often  and 
seriously  alleged: — "  If  it  be  most  agieeable  to  per- 
fect wisdom  and  justice  that  we  should  receive  what 
we  desire,  God,  as  perfectly  wise  and  just,  will  give  it 
to  us  without  asking;  if  it  be  not  agreeable  to  these 


22      DUTY  AND  EFFICACY  OF  PRAYER 

attributes  of  his  nature,  our  entreaties  cannot  move 
him  to  give  it  us,  and  it  were  impious  to  expect  that 
they  should."  In  fewer  words,  thus:  "  If  what  we 
request  be  fit  for  us,  we  shall  have  it  without  praying; 
if  it  be  not  fit  for  us,  we  cannot  obtain  it  by  praying." 
This  objection  admits  but  of  one  answer,  namely,  that 
it  may  be  agreeable  to  perfect  wisdom  to  grant  that  to 
our  prayers  which  it  would  not  have  been  agreeable 
to  the  same  wisdom  to  have  given  us  without  praying 
for.  But  what  virtue,  you  will  ask,  is  there  iu 
prayer,  which  should  make  a  favour  consistent  with 
wisdom,  which  would  not  have  been  so  without  it  ? 
To  this  question,  which  contains  the  whole  difficulty 
attending  the  subject,  the  following  possibilities  are 
offered  in  reply. 

1.  A  favour  granted  to  prayer  may  be  more  apt,  on 
that  very  account,  to  produce  good  effects  upon  the 
person  obliged.     It  may  hold  in  the  Divine   bounty, 
what  experience  has  raised  into  a  proverb  in  the  colla- 
tion of  human  benefits,  that  what  is  obtained  without 
asking,  is  oftentimes  received  without  gratitude. 

2.  It  may  be   consistent  with   the   wisdom   of  the 
Deity  to  withhold  his  favours  till  they  be  asked  for,  as 
an  expedient  to  encourage  devotion  in  his  rational  cre- 
ation,  in  order   thereby  to   keep  up   and  circulate  a 
knowledge  and  sense  of  their  dependency  upon  him. 

3.  Prayer  has   a   natural  tendency  to   amend   the 
petitioner  himself;  and  thus  to  bring  him  within  the 
rules  which  the  wisdom  of  the  Deity  has  prescribed  to 
the  dispensation  of  his  favours. 

If  these,  or  any  other  assignable  suppositions,  serve 
to  remove  the  apparent  repugnancy  between  the  suc- 
cess of  prayer  and  the  character  of  the  Deity,  it  u 
enough;  for  the  question  with  the  petitioner  is  not, 
from  which,  out  of  many  motives,  God  may  grant  his 
petition,  or  in  what  particular  manner  he  is  moved  by 
the  supplications  of  his  creatures;  but  whether  it  be 
consistent  with  his  nature  to  be  moved  at  all,  and  whe- 
ther there  be  any  conceivable  motives  which  may  dis- 
pose the  Divine  will  to  grant  the  petitioner  what  ho 
wants,  in  consequence  of  his  praying  for  it?  It  is  suf- 
ficient for  the  petitioner,  that  he  gain  his  end.  It  is 


DUTY  AND   EFFICACY    OF  PRAYED.  23 

not  necessary  to  devotion,  perhaps  not  very  consistent 
with  it,  that  the  circuit  of  causes,  by  which  his  prayers 
prevail,  should  be  known  to  the  petitioner,  much  less 
that  they  should  be  present  to  his  imagination  at  the 
time.  All  that  is  necessary  is,  that  there  be  no  im 
possibility  apprehended  in  the  matter. 

Thus  much  must  be  conceded  to  the  objoction  that 
prayer  cannot  reasonably  be  offered  to  God  with  all 
the  same  views  with  which  we  oftentimes  address  our 
entreaties  to  men  (views  which  are  not  commonly  or 
easily  separated  from  it,)  viz.  to  inform  them  of  our 
wants  and  desires;  to  tease  them  out  by  importunity; 
to  work  upon  their  indolence  or  compassion,  in  order 
to  persuade  them  to  do  what  they  ought  to  have  done 
before,  or  ought  not  to  do  at  all. 

But  suppose  there  existed  a  prince,  who  was  known 
by  his  subjects  to  act,  of  his  own  accord,  always  and 
invariably  for  the  best;  the  situation  of  a  petitioner, 
who  solicited  a  favour  or  pardon  from  such  a  prince, 
would  sufficiently  resemble  ours;  and  the  question 
with  him,  as  with  us,  would  be,  whether  the  charac- 
ter of  the  prince  being  considered,  there  remained  any 
chance  that  he  should  obtain  from  him  by  prayer 
what  he  would  not  have  received  without  it  ?  I  do 
not  conceive  that  the  character  of  such  a  prince  would 
necessarily  exclude  the  effect  of  his  subject's  prayers, 
for  when  that  prince  reflected,  that  the  earnestness 
and  humility  of  the  supplication  had  generated  in  the 
suppliant  a  frame  of  mind,  upon  which  the  pardon  or 
favour  asked  would  produce  a  permanent  and  active 
sense  of  gratitude:  that  the  granting  of  it  to  prayer 
would  put  others  upon  praying  to  him,  and  by  that 
means  preserve  the  love  and  submission  of  his  sub- 
jects, upon  which  love  and  submission  their  own  hap 
piness,  as  well  as  his  glory,  depended;  that,  beside 
that  the  memory  of  the  particular  kindness  would  be 
heightened  and  prolonged  by  the  anxiety  with  which 
it  had  been  sued  for,  prayer  had  in  other  respects  so 
disposed  and  prepared  the  mind  of  the  petitioner,  as 
to  render  capable  of  future  services  him  who  before 
was  unqualified  for  any:  might  not  that  prince,  I 
say,  although  he  proceeded  upon  no  other  considers 


24      DUTY  AND  EFFICACY  OF  PRAYBA. 

tions  than  the  strict  rectitude  and  expediency  of  the 
measure,  grant  a  favour  or  pardon  to  this  man,  which 
he  did  not  grant  to  another,  who  was  too  proud,  too 
lazy,  or  busy,  too  indifferent  whether  he  received  it 
or  not,  or  too  insensible  of  the  sovereign's  absolute 
power  to  give  or  to  withhold  it,  ever  to  ask  for  it  ?  or 
even  to  th<*  philosopher,  who,  from  an  opinion  of  the 
fruitlessness  of  all  addresses  to  a  prince  of  the  charac- 
ter which  he  had  formed  to  himself,  refused  in  his 
own  example,  and  discouraged  in  others,  all  outward 
returns  of  gratitude,  acknowledgments  of  duty,  or 
application  to  the  sovereign's  mercy  or  bounty;  the 
disuse  of  which  (seeing  affections  do  not  long  subsist 
which  are  never  expressed)  was  followed  by  a  decay 
of  loyalty  and  zeal  amongst  his  subjects,  and  threat 
ened  to  end  in  a  forgetfulness  of  his  rights,  and  a 
contempt  of  his  authority  ?  These,  together  with  other 
assignable  considerations,  and  some  perhaps  inscru- 
table, and  even  inconceivable,  by  the  persons  upon 
whom  his  will  was-  to  be  exercised,  might  pass  in  the 
mind  of  the  prince,  and  move  his  counsels;  whilst 
nothing,  in  the  mean  time,  dwelt  in  the  petitioner's 
thoughts,  but  a  sense  of  his  own  grief  and  wants;  of 
the  power  and  goodness  from  which  alone  he  was  to 
look  for  relief;  and  of  his  obligation  to  endeavour,  by 
future  obedience,  to  render  that  person  propitious  to 
his  happiness,  in  whose  hands  and  at  the  disposal  of 
whose  mercy  he  found  himself  to  be. 

The  objection  to  prayer  supposes,  that  a  perfectly 
wise  being  must  necessarily  be  inexorable:  but  where 
is  the  proof,  that  inexorability  is  any  part  of  perfect 
wisdom;  especially  of  that  wisdom  which  is  explained 
to  consist  in  bringing  about  the  most  beneficial  ends 
by  the  wisest  means  ? 

The  objection  likewise  assumes  another  principle, 
which  is  attended  with  considerable  difficulty  and  ob 
scurity*  namely,  that  upon  every  occasion  there  is  one, 
and  only  one,  mode  of  acting  for  the  best ;  and  that 
the  Divine  Will  is  necessarily  determined  and  con- 
fined to  that  mode:  both  which  positions  presume  a 
knowledge  of  universal  nature,  much  beyond  what 
we  are  capable  of  attaining.  Indeed,  when  we  apply 


DUTY  AND  EFFICACY  OF   PRAYER.  25 

to  the  Divine  Nature  such  expressions  as  these,  "  God 
must  always  do  what  is  right,"  "  God  cannot,  from 
the  moral  perfection  and  necessity  of  his  nature,  act 
otherwise  than  for  the  best,"  we  ought  to  apply  them 
with  much  indeterminateness  and  reserve;  or  rather, 
we  ought  to  confess,  that  there  is  something  in  the 
subject  out  of  the  reach  of  our  apprehension;  for,  in 
our  apprehension,  to  be  under  a  necessity  of  acting 
according  to  any  rule,  is  inconsistent  with  free  agency; 
and  it  makes  no  difference  which  we  can  understand, 
whether  the  necessity  be  internal  or  external,  or  that 
the  rule  is  the  rule  of  perfect  rectitude. 

But  efficacy  is  ascribed  to  prayer  without  the  proof, 
we  are  told,  which  can  alone  in  such  a  subject  pro- 
duce conviction, — the  confirmation  of  experience. 
Concerning  the  appeal  to  experience,  I  shall  content 
myself  with  this  remark,  that  if  prayer  were  suffered 
to  disturb  the  order  of  second  causes  appointed  in  the 
universe  too  much,  or  to  produce  its  effects  with  the 
same  regularity  that  they  do,  it  would  introduce  a 
change  into  human  affairs,  which  in  some  important 
respects  would  be  evidently  for  the  worse.  Who,  for 
example,  would  labour,  if  his  necessities  could  be  sup- 
plied with  equal  certainty  by  prayer  ?  How  few  would 
contain  within  any  bounds  of  moderation  those  pas- 
sions and  pleasures,  which  at  present  are  checked 
only  by  disease,  or  the  dread  of  it,  if  prayer  would 
infallibly  restore  health  ?  In  short,  if  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  were  so  constant  and  observable  as  to  be  relied 
upon  beforehand,  it  is  easy  to  foresee  that  the  conduct 
of  mankind  would,  in  proportion  to  that  reliance,  be- 
come careless  and  disorderly.  It  is  possible,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  that  our  prayers  may,  in  many  in- 
stances, be  efficacious,  and  yet  our  experience  of  their 
efficacy  be  dubious  and  obscure.  Therefore,  if  the 
light  of  nature  instruct  us  by  any  other  arguments  to 
hope  for  effect  from  prayer;  still  more,  if  the  Scrip- 
tures authorize  these  hopes  by  promises  of  accept- 
ance; it  seems  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  calling  in 
question  the  reality  of  such  effects,  that  our  observa- 
tions of  them  are  ambiguous;  especially  since  it  ap- 

VOL,.   II.  3 


26  DUTY  AND   EFFICACY  OF    PRAYER. 

pears  probable,  that  this  very  ambiguity  is  necessary 
to  the  happiness  and  safety  of  human  life. 

But  some,  whose  objections  do  not  exclude  all 
prayer,  are  offended  with  the  mode  of  prayer  in  use 
amongst  us,  and  with  many  of  the  subjects  which  are 
almost  universally  introduced  into  public  worship, 
and  recommended  to  private  devotion.  To  pray  for 
particular  favours  by  name,  is  to  dictate,  it  has  been 
said,  to  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness:  to  intercede  for 
others,  especially  for  whole  nations  and  empires,  is 
still  worse;  it  is  to  presume  that  we  possess  such  an 
interest  with  the  Deity,  as  to  be  able,  by  our  applica- 
tions, to  bend  the  most  important  of  his  counsels;  and 
that  the  happiness  of  others,  and  even  the  prosperity 
of  communities,  is  to  depend  upon  this  interest,  and 
upon  our  choice.  Now,  how  unequal  soever  our 
knowledge  of  the  Divine  economy  may  be  to  the  so- 
lution of  this  difficulty,  which  requires  perhaps  a  com- 
prehension of  the  entire  plan,  and  of  all  the  ends  of 
God's  moral  government,  to  explain  satisfactorily,  we 
can  understand  one  thing  concerning  it, — that  it  is, 
after  all,  nothing  more  than  the  making  of  one  man 
the  instrument  of  happiness  and  misery  to  another; 
which  is  perfectly  of  a  piece  with  the  course  and  order 
that  obtain,  and  which  we  must  believe  were  intended 
to  obtain  in  human  affairs.  Why  may  we  not  be 
assisted  by  the  prayers  of  other  men,  who  are  beholden 
for  our  support  to  their  labour  ?  Why  may  not  our 
happiness  be  made  in  some  cases  to  depend  upon  the 
intercession,  as  it  certainly  does  in  many  upon  the 
good  offices,  of  our  neighbours  ?  The  happiness  and 
misery  of  great  numbers  we  see  oftentimes  at  the  dis- 
posal of  one  man's  choice,  or  liable  to  be  much  affected 
by  his  conduct;  what  greater  difficulty  is  there  in 
supposing  that  the  prayers  of  an  individual  may  avert 
a  calamity  from  multitudes,  or  be  accepted  to  the 
benefit  of  whole  communities? 


DUTY  AND  EFFICACY    OF  PRAYER.  27 


CHAPTER  III. 

OF  THE  DUTY  AND    EFFICACY  OF  PRAYER  AS    RE- 
PRESENTED  IN  SCRIPTURE. 

THE  reader  will  have  observed,  that  the  reflections 
stated  in  the  preceding  chapter,  whatever  truth  and 
weight  they  may  be  allowed  to  contain,  rise  many 
of  them  no  higher  than  to  negative  arguments  in  fa- 
vour of  the  propriety  of  addressing  prayer  to  God. 
To  prove  that  the  efficacy  of  prayers  is  not  inconsis- 
tent with  the  attributes  of  the  Deity  does  not  prove 
that  prayers  are  actually  efficacious:  and  in  the  want 
of  that  unequivocal  testimony  which  experience  alone 
could  afford  to  this  point  (but  which  we  do  not  pos- 
sess, and  have  seen  good  reason  why  we  are  not  to 
expect,)  the  light  of  nature  leaves  us  to  controverted 
probabilities,  drawn  from  the  impulse  by  which  man- 
kind have  been  almost  universally  prompted  to  devo- 
tion, and  from  some  beneficial  purposes,  which,  it  is 
conceived,  may  be  better  answered  by  the  audience 
of  prayer  than  any  other  mode  of  communicating 
the  same  blessings.  The  Revelations  which  we  deem 
authentic  completely  supply  this  defect  of  natural 
religion.  They  require  prayer  to  God  as  a  duty; 
and  they  contain  positive  assurance  of  its  efficacy  and 
acceptance.  We  could  have  no  reasonable  motive 
for  the  exercise  of  prayer,  without  believing  that  it 
may  avail  to  the  relief  of  our  wants.  This  belief  can 
only  be  founded,  either  in  a  sensible  experience  of  the 
effect  of  prayer,  or  in  promises  of  acceptance  signified 
by  divine  authority.  Our  knowledge  would  have 
come  to  us  in  the  former  way,  less  capable  indeed  of 
doubt,  but  subjected  to  the  abuses  and  inconveniences 
briefly  described  above;  in  the  latter  way,  that  is,  by 
authorized  significations  of  God's  general  disposition 
to  hear  an.d  answer  the  devout  supplications  of  his 
creatures,  we  are  encouraged  to  pray,  but  not  to  place 
such  a  dependence  upon  prayer  as  might  relax  other 
obligations,  or  confound  the  order  of  events  and  of 
human  expectations. 


28       DUTY  AND  EFFICACY  OF  PRAYER. 

The  Scriptures  not  only  affirm  the  propriety  of 
pra.yer  in  general,  but  furnish  precepts  or  examples 
which  justify  some  topics  and  some  modes  of  prayer 
that  have  been  thought  exceptionable.  And  as  the 
whole  subject  rests  so  much  upon  the  foundation  of 
Scripture,  I  shall  put  down  at  length  texts  applicable 
to  the  five  following  heads:  to  the  duty  and  efficacy 
of  prayer  in  general;  of  prayer  for  particular  favours 
byname;  for  public  national  blessings;  of  intercession 
for  others;  of  the  repetition  of  unsuccessful  prayers. 

1.  Texts  enjoining  prayer  in  general:  "  Ask,  and 
it  shall  be  given  you;  seek,  and  you  shall  find. — If  ye, 
being  evil,  know  how  to  give   good  gifts  unto  your 
children,  how  much  more  shall  your  Father,  which  is 
in  heaven,  give  good  things  to  them  that  ask  him  ?"-- 
"  Watch  ye,  therefore  and  pray  always.,  that  ye  may 
be  accounted  worthy  to  escape  all  those  things  that 
shall  come  to  pass,  and  to  stand  before  the  Son  of 
man." — "  Serving  the  Lord,  rejoicing  in  hope,  patient 
in  tribulation,  continuing  instant  in  prayer." — "  Be 
careful  for  nothing,  but  in  every  thing  by  prayer  and 
supplication,  with  thanksgiving,  let  your  requests  be 
made  known  unto   God." — '*  I  will,  therefore,   that 
men  pray  every  ivhere,  lifting  up  holy  hands  without 
wrath    and  doubting." — "  Pray  without   ceasing." 
Matt.   vii.    7.  11;  Luke,   xxi.   36;  Rom.  xii.  12;  Phi- 
lip,   iv.   6;    1   Thess.  v.  17;    1    Tim.   ii.   8.     Add  to 
these,  that  Christ's  reproof  of  the  ostentation  and  pro- 
lixity of  pharisaical  prayers,  and  his  recommendation 
to  his  disciples,  of  retirement  and  simplicity  in  theirs, 
together  with  his  dictating  a  particular  form  of  prayer, 
all  presuppose  prayer  to  be  an  acceptable  and  availing 
service. 

2.  Examples  of  prayer   for  particular  favours    by 
name:  "  For  this  thing"  (to  wit,   some   bodily   infir- 
mity, which  he  calls  '  a  thorn  given  him  in  the  flesh') 
"  I  besought  the   Lord  thrice   that    it    might  depart 
from    me." — "  Night   and    day    praying  exceedingly, 
that  we  might  sec  your  face,  and  perfect  that  which 
is   lacking  in   your  faith."      2  Cor.  xii.  8 ;    1    Thess. 
iii.  10. 

3.  Directions  to  pray  Jor  national  or  public  bless- 


DUTY    AND  EFFICACY   OF  PRAYER.  29 

ings:  "  Pray  for  the  peace  of  Jerusalem :" — "Ask 
ye  of  the  Lord  rain  in  the  time  of  the  latter  rain;  so 
the  Lord  shall  make  bright  clouds,  and  give  them 
showers  of  rain,  to  every  one  grass  in  the  field/' — • 
"  I  exhort,  therefore,  that  first  of  all,  supplications, 
prayers,  intercessions,  and  giving  of  thanks  be  made 
for  all  men;  for  kings,  and  for  all  that  are  in  autho- 
rity, that  we  may  lead  a  quiet  and  peaceable  life,  in 
all  godliness  and  honesty:  for  this  is  good  arid  accept- 
able in  the  sight  of  God  our  Saviour."  Psalm  cxxii. 
6;  Zech.x.  1;  1  Tim.  ii.  1,  2,  3. 

4.  Examples   of  intercession,   and  exhortations  to 
intercede    for   others: — '*  And   Moses    besought    the 
Lord  his   God,  and  said,  Lord,  why  doth  thy  wrath 
wax  hot   against   thy  people  ?  Remember  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Israel,  thy  servants.  And  the  Lord  repented 
of  the  evil  which  he  thought  to   do  unto   his  people." 
— "  Peter,  therefore,  was  kept  in  prison;  but  prayer 
was  made  without   ceasing  of  the  church   unto   God 
for  him." — "For   God  is  my  witness,   that   without 
ceasing  I  make  mention  of  you  always  in  my  pray- 
ers."— "  Now  I  beseech  you,  brethren,  for  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ's  sake,  and  for  the  love  of  the  Spirit,  that 
ye  strive  together  with  me,  \nyQ\\\-  prayers  for  me." 
— "  Confess  your  faults  one  to  another,  and  prati  one 
for  another,  that  ye  may  be  healed:  the  effectual  fer- 
vent prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much."  Exod. 
xxxii.    11;    Acts,  xii.  5;    Rom.  i.  9,  xv.  30;    James, 
v.  16. 

5.  Declarations  and  examples  authorizing  the  repe- 
tition of  unsuccessful  prayer:  "  And  he  spake  a  para- 
ble unto  them,  to  this  end,  that  men  ought  always  to 
pray  and  not  to  faint." — "  And  he  left  them,  and  went 
away  again,  and  prayed  the  third  time,  saying  the 
same  words." — "  For  this  thing  I  besought  the  Lord 
thrice,  that  it  might  depart  from  me."     Luke,  xviii.  1 , 
Matt,  xxvi   44;  2  Cor.  xii.  8.* 


*  The  reformed  Churches  of  Christendom,  sticking  close 
in  this  article  to  their  guide,  have  laid  aside  prayers  for  the 
dead,  as  authorized  by  no  precept  or  precedent  found  in 
Scripture.  For  the  same  reason  they  properly  reject  the  in- 

VOL,.   II.  3  * 


80  PRIVATE  PRATER,  &C. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OF  PRIVATE  PRAYER,  FAMILY  PRAYER,  AND  PUB 
LIC  WORSHIP. 

CONCERNING  these  three  descriptions  of  devotion, 
it  is  first  of  all  to  be  observed,  that  each  has  its  sepa- 
rate and  peculiar  use;  and  therefore,  that  the  exercise 
of  one  species  of  worship,  however  regular  it  be,  does 
not  supersede  or  dispense  with  the  obligation  of  either 
of  the  other  two. 

1.  Private  prayer  is  recommended  for  the  sake  of 
the  following  advantages* — 

Private  wants  cannot  always  be  made  the  subject 
of  public  prayer;  but  whatever  reason  there  is  for 
praying  at  all,  there  is  the  same  for  making  the  sore 
and  grief  of  each  man's  own  heart  the  business  of  his 
application  to  God.  This  must  be  the  office  of  pri- 
vate exercises  of  devotion,  being  imperfectly,  if  at  all, 
practicable  in  any  other. 

Private  prayer  is  generally  more  devout  and  earnest 
than  the  share  we  are  capable  of  taking  in  joint  acts 
of  worship;  because  it  affords  leisure  and  opportu- 
nity for  the  circumstantial  recollection  of  those  per- 
sonal wants,  by  the  remembrance  and  ideas  of  which 
the  warmth  and  earnestness  of  prayer  are  chiefly 
excited. 

Private  prayer,  in  proportion  as  it  is  usually  accom- 
panied with  more  actual  thought  and  reflection  of  the 
petitioner's  own,  has  a  greater  tendency  than  other 
modes  of  devotion  to  revive  and  fasten  upon  the  mind 
the  general  impressions  of  religion.  Solitude  power- 
fully assists  this  effect.  When  a  man  finds  himself 
alone  in  communication  with  his  Creator,  his  imagi- 

vocation  of  saints  ;  as  also  because  such  invocations  suppose, 
in  the  saints  whom  they  address,  a  knowledge  which  can  per- 
ceive what  passes  in  different  regions  of  the  earth  at  the  same 
time.  And  they  deem  it  too  much  to  take  for  granted,  with- 
out the  smallest  intimation  of  such  a  thing  in  Scripture,  that 
any  created  being  possesses  a  faculty  little  short  of  that  om- 
niscence  and  omnipresence  which  they  ascribe  to  the  Deity 


PRIVATE  PRAYER,  &C.  31 

nation  becomes  filled  with  a  conflux  of  awful  ideas 
concerning  the  universal  agency  and  invisible  pre- 
sence of  I  hat  Being;  concerning  what  is  likely  to  be- 
come of  himself;  and  of  the  superlative  importance 
of  providing  for  the  happiness  of  his  future  existence, 
by  endeavours  to  please  him  who  is  the  arbiter  of  his 
destiny:  reflections  which,  whenever  they  gain  admk- 
tance,  for  a  season  overwhelm  all  others;  and  leave, 
when  they  depart,  a  solemnity  upon  the  thoughts  that 
will  seldom  fail,  in  some  degree,  to  affect  the  conduct 
of  life. 

Private  prayer,  thus  recommended  by  its  own  pro- 
priety, and  by  advantages  not  attainable  in  any  form 
of  religious  communion,  receives  a  superior  sanction 
from  the  authority  and  example  of  Christ:  "When 
thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet;  and  when  thou 
hast  shut  the  door,  pray  to  thy  Father,  which  is  in 
secret;  and  thy  Father,  which  seeth  in  secret,  shall 
reward  thee  openly." — "  And  when  he  had  sent  the 
multitudes  away,  he  went  up  into  a  mountain  apart 
to  pray."  Matt.  vi.  6:  xiv.  23. 

2.   Family  prayer. 

The  peculiar  use  of  family  piety  consists  in  its  in- 
fluence upon  servants,  and  the  young  members  of  a 
family,  who  want  sufficient  seriousness  and  reflection 
to  retire  of  their  own  accord  to  the  exercise  of  private 
devotion,  and  whose  attention  you  cannot  easily  com- 
mand in  public  worship.  The  example  also  and  au- 
thority of  a  father  and  master  act  in  this  way  with 
the  greatest  force;  for  his  private  prayers,  to  which 
his  children  and  servants  are  not  witnesses,  act  not  at 
all  upon  them  as  examples;  and  his  attendance  upon 
public  worship  they  will  readily  impute  to  fashion,  to 
a  care  to  preserve  appearances,  to  a  concern  for  de- 
cency and  character,  and  to  many  motives  besides  a 
sense  of  duty  to  God.  Add  to  this,  that  forms  of 
public  worship,  in  proportion  as  they  are  more  com- 
prehensive, are  always  less  interesting  than  family 
prayers;  and  that  the  ardour  of  devotion  is  better 
supported,  and  the  sympathy  more  easily  propagated, 
through  a  small  assembly,  connected  by  the  affections 


82  PRIVATE  PRAYER,  &C. 

of  domestic  society,  than  in  the  presence  of  a  mixed 
congregation. 

3.  Public  worship. 

If  the  worship  of  God  be  a  duty  of  religion,  public 
worship  is  a  necessary  institution;  forasmuch  as,  with- 
out it,  the  greater  part  of  mankind  would  exercise  no 
religious  worship  at  all. 

These  assemblies  afford  also,  at  the  same  time,  op- 
portunities for  moral  and  religious  instruction  to  those 
who  otherwise  would  receive  none.  In  all  protestant, 
and  in  most  Christian  countries,  the  elements  of  natural 
religion  and  the  important  parts  of  the  Evangelic  his- 
tory are  familiar  to  the  lowest  of  the  people.  This 
competent  degree  and  general  diffusion  of  religious 
knowledge  amongst  all  orders  of  Christians,  which  will 
appear  a  great  thing  when  compared  with  the  intel- 
lectual condition  of  barbarous  nations,  can  fairly,  I 
think,  be  ascribed  to  no  other  cause  than  the  regular 
establishment  of  assemblies  for  divine  worship;  in 
which,  either  portions  of  Scripture  are  recited  and 
explained,  or  the  principles  of  Christian  erudition  are 
so  constantly  taught  in  sermons,  incorporated  with 
liturgies,  or  expressed  in  extempore  prayer,  as  to  im- 
print, by  the  very  repetition,  some  knowledge  and 
memory  of  these  subjects  upon  the  most  unqualified 
and  careless  hearer. 

The  two  reasons  above  stated  bind  all  the  members 
of  a  community  to  uphold  public  worship  by  their 
presence  and  example,  although  the  helps  and  oppor- 
tunities which  it  affords  may  not  be  necessary  to  the 
devotion  or  edification  of  all;  and  to  some  may  be 
useless;  for  it  is  easily  foreseen,  how  soon  religious 
assemblies  would  fall  into  contempt  and  disuse,  if 
that  class  of  mankind  who  are  above  seeking  instruc- 
tion in  them,  and  want  not  that  their  own  piety  should 
be  assisted  by  either  forms  or  society  in  devotion,  were 
to  withdraw  their  attendance;  especially  when  it  is 
considered,  that  all  who  please  are  at  liberty  to  rank 
themselves  of  this  class.  This  argument  meets  the 
only  serious  apology  that  can  be  made  for  the  absent- 
ing of  ourselves  from  public  worship.  "  Surely  (some 
will  say)  I  may  be  excused  from  going  to  church,  so 


PRIVATE   PRATER,  &C.  S3 

long  as  I  pray  at  home ;  and  have  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  my  prayers  are  as  acceptable  and  efficacious  in 
my  closet  as  in  a  cathedral;  still  less  can  I  think 
myself  obliged  to  sit  out  a  tedious  sermon,  in  order  to 
hear  what  is  known  already,  what  is  better  learnt  from 
books,  or  suggested  by  meditation."  They,  whose 
qualifications  and  habits  best  supply  to  themselves  all 
the  effect  of  public  ordinances,  will  be  the  last  to  prefer 
this  excuse,  when  they  advert  to  the  general  conse- 
quence of  setting  up  such  an  exemption,  as  well  as 
when  they  consider  the  turn  which  is  sure  to  be  given 
in  the  neighbourhood  to  their  absence  from  public 
worship.  You  stay  from  church,  to  employ  the  Sab- 
bath at  home  in  exercises  and  studies  suited  to  its 
proper  business:  your  next  neighbour  stays  from 
church  to  spend  the  seventh  day  less  religiously  than 
he  passed  any  of  the  six,  in  a  sleepy,  stupid  rest,  or 
at  some  rendezvous  of  drunkenness  and  debauchery, 
and  yet  thinks  that  he  is  only  imitating  you,  because 
you  both  agree  in  not  going  to  church.  The  same 
consideration  should  overrule  many  small  scruples  con- 
cerning the  rigorous  propriety  of  some  things,  which 
may  be  contained  in  the  forms,  or  admittecf  into  the 
administration  of  the  public  worship  of  our  commu- 
nion: for  it  seems  impossible  that  even  "  two  or  three 
should  be  gathered  together"  in  any  act  of  social 
worship,  if  each  one  require  from  the  rest  an  implicit 
submission  to  his  objections,  and  if  no  man  will  attend 
upon  a  religious  service  which  in  any  point  contradicts 
his  opinion  of  truth,  or  falls  short  of  his  ideas  of  per- 
fection. 

Besides  the  direct  necessity  of  public  worship  to  the 
greater  part  of  every  Christian  community  (supposing 
worship  at  all  to  be  a  Christian  duty,)  there  are  other 
valuable  advantages  growing  out  of  the  use  of  re- 
ligious assemblies,  without  being  designed  in  the  in- 
stitution, or  thought  of  by  the  individuals  who  com- 
pose them. 

1.  Joining  in  prayer  and  praises  to  their  common 
Creator  and  Governor  has  a  sensible  tendency  to  unite 
mankind  together,  and  to  cherish  and  enlarge  the 
generous  affections. 


84  PRIVATE   PRAYER,  &C. 

So  many  pathetic  reflections  are  awakened  by  every 
exercise  of  social  devotion,  that  most  men,  I  believe, 
carry  away  from  public  worship  a  better  temper  towards 
the  rest  of  mankind,  than  they  brought  with  them. 
Sprung  from  the  same  extraction,  preparing  together 
for  the  period  of  all  worldly  distinctions,  reminded  of 
their  mutual  infirmities  and  common  dependency,  im- 
ploring and  receiving  support  and  supplies  from  the 
same  great  source  of  power  and  bounty,  having  all  one 
interest  to  secure,  one  Lord  to  serve,  one  judgment,  the 
supreme  object  to  all  of  their  hopes  and  fears,  to  look 
towards;  it  is  hardly  possible,  in  this  position,  to  be- 
hold mankind  as  strangers,  competitors,  or  enemies; 
or  not  to  regard  them  as  children  of  the  same  family, 
assembled  before  their  common  parent,  and  with  some 
portion  of  the  tenderness  which  belongs  to  the  most 
endearing  of  our  domestic  relations.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected,  that  any  single  effect  of  this  kind  should  be 
considerable  or  lasting;  but  the  frequent  return  of 
such  sentiments  as  the  presence  of  a  devout  congre- 
gation naturally  suggest  will  gradually  melt  down 
the  ruggedness  of  many  unkind  passions,  and  may 
generate  in  time,  a  permanent  and  productive  bene- 
volence. 

2.  Assemblies  for  the  purpose  of  divine  worship, 
placing  men  under  impressions  by  which  they  are 
taught  to  consider  their  relation  to  the  Deity,  and  to 
contemplate  those  around  them  with  a  view  to  that 
relation,  force  upon  their  thoughts  the  natural  equality 
of  the  human  species,  and  thereby  promote  humility 
and  condescension  in  the  highest  orders  of  the  com- 
munity, and  inspire  the  lowest  with  a  sense  of  their 
rights.  The  distinctions  of  civil  life  arc  almost  always 
insisted  upon  too  much,  and  urged  too  far.  What- 
ever, therefore,  conduces  to  restore  the  level,  by  qua- 
lifying the  dispositions  which  grow  out  of  great  eleva- 
tion or  depression  of  rank,  improves  the  character  on 
both  sides.  Now  things  are  made  to  appear  little,  by 
being  placed  beside  what  is  great.  In  which  manner, 
superiorities  that  occupy  the  whole  field  of  imagina- 
tion will  vanish,  or  shrink  to  their  proper  diminutive- 
ness,  when  compared  with  the  distance  by  which 


PRIVATE  PRAYER,  &C.  35 

even  the  highest  of  men  are  removed  from  the  SIN 
preme  Being;  and  this  comparison  is  naturally  intro- 
duced by  ali  acts  of  joint  worship.  If  ever  the  poor 
man  holds  up  his  head,  it  is  at  church;  if  ever  the 
rich  man  views  him  with  respect,  it  is  there:  and  both 
will  be  the  better,  and  the  public  profited,  the  oftener 
they  meet  in  a  situation,  in  which  the  consciousness  of 
dignity  in  the  one  is  tempered  and  mitigated,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  other  erected  and  conlirmed.  We  recom- 
mend nothing  adverse  to  subordinations  which  are 
established  and  necessary;  but  then  it  should  be  re- 
membered, that  subordination  itself  is  an  evil,  being 
an  evil  to  the  subordinate,  who  are  the  majority,  and 
therefore  ought  not  to  be  carried  a  tittle  beyond  what 
the  greater  good,  the  peaceable  government  of  the 
community,  requires. 

The  public  worship  of  Cnristians  is  a  duty  of  Divine 
appointment.  "  Where  t\vo  or  three,"  says  Christ, 
"  are  gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  arn  I  in 
the  midst  of  them."*  This  invitation  will  want 
nothing  of  the  force  of  a  command  with  those  who 
respect  the  person  and  authority  from  which  it  pro- 
ceeds. Again,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews:  "  Not 
forsaking  the  assembling  of  ourselves  together,  as  the 
manner  of  some  is;"t  which  reproof  seems  as  applica- 
ble to  the  desertion  of  our  public  worship  at  this  day, 
as  to  the  forsaking  the  religious  assemblies  of  Chris- 
tians in  the  age  of  the  Apostle.  Independently  of 
these  passages  of  Scripture,  a  disciple  of  Christianity 
will  hardly  think  himself  at  liberty  to  dispute  a  prac- 
tice set  on  foot  by  the  inspired  preachers  of  his  reli- 
gion, coeval  with  its  institution,  and  retained  by  every 
sect  into  which  it  has  been  since  divided. 


*  Matt,  xviii.  20.  f  Heb.  x.  25 


FORMS  OF  PRAYEH. 

CHAPTER  V. 

OF   FORMS   OF  PRAYER    IN  PUBLIC  WORSHIP. 

LITURGIES,  or  preconcerted  forms,  of  public  devo- 
tion, being  neither  enjoined  in  Scripture,  nor  forbidden, 
there  can  be  no  good  reason  for  either  receiving  or 
rejecting  them,  but  that  of  expediency;  which  expe- 
diency is  to  be  gathered  from  a  comparison  of  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  attending  upon  this 
mode  of  worship,  with  those  which  usually  accom- 
pany extemporary  prayer. 

The  advantages  of  a  liturgy  are  these: 

1.  That  it  prevents  absurd,  extravagant,  or  impious 
addresses  to    God,   which,  in  an  order  of  men  so  nu- 
merous as  the  sacerdotal,  the  folly  and  enthusiasm  of 
many  must  always  be  in  danger  of  producing,  where 
the  conduct  of  the  public  worship  is  intrusted,  without 
restraint   or  assistance,   to  the  discretion  and  abilities 
of  the  officiating  minister. 

2.  That   it  prevents  the  confusion  of  extemporary 
prayer,   in  which  the  congregation  being  ignorant  of 
each  petition  before  they  hear  it,  and  having  little  or 
no  time  to  join  in  it  after  they  have  heard  it,  are  con- 
founded between  their  attention  to  the  minister  and  to 
their  own   devotion.     The   devotion  of  the   hearer  is 
necessarily  suspended  until   a  petition   be  concluded; 
and   before   he  can   assent  to  it,  or  properly  adopt  it, 
that  is,  before  he  can  address  the  same  request  to  God 
for  himself  and  from  himself,   his  attention  is  called 
off  to  keep  pace  with  what   succeeds.      Add  to  this, 
that  the  rnind  of  the  hearer  is  held  in  continual  expec- 
tation,  and  detained  from  its  proper  business,  by  the 
very   novelty  with  which  it  is  gratified.     A  congrega- 
tion  may  be   pleased   and   affected   with  the  prayers 
and  devotion  of  their  minister,  without  joining  in  them; 
in  like  manner  as  an   audience   oftentimes  are  with 
the  representation  of  devotion  upon  the  stage,  who, 
nevertheless,    come   away  without  being  conscious  of 
having  exercised  any  act  of  devotion  themselves.   Joint 
prayer,  which  amongst  all  denominations  of  Christians 


FORMS  OF  PRAYER. 


37 


is  the  declared  design  of  "  coming  together,"  is  prayer 
in  which  all  join  ;  and  not  that  which  one  alone  in 
the  congregation  conceives  and  delivers,  and  of  which 
the  rest  are  merely  hearers.  This  objection  seems 
fundamental,  and  holds  even  where  the  minister's 
office  is  discharged  with  every  possible  advantage  and 
accomplishment.  The  labouring  recollection,  and 
embarrassed  or  tumultuous  delivery,  of  many  extem- 
pore speakers,  form  an  additional  objection  to  this 
mode  of  public  worship:  for  these  imperfections  are 
very  general,  and  give  great  pain  to  the  serious  part 
of  a  congregation,  as  well  as  afford  a  profane  diversion 
to  the  levity  of  the  other  part. 

These  advantages  of  a  liturgy  are  connected  with 
two  principal  inconveniencies:  first,  that  forms  of 
prayer  composed  in  one  age  become  unfit  for  another, 
by  the  unavoidable  change  of  language,  circumstances, 
and  opinions;  secondly,  that  the  perpetual  repetition 
of  the  same  form  of  words  produces  weariness  and 
inattentiveness  in  the  congregation.  However,  both 
these  inconveniencies  are  in  their  nature  vincible 
Occasional  revisions  of  a  liturgy  may  obviate  the  first, 
and  devotion  will  supply  a  remedy  for  the  second:  or 
they  may  both  subsist  in  a  considerable  degree,  and 
yet  be  outweighed  by  the  objections  which  are  inse- 
parable from  extemporary  prayer. 

The  Lord's  Prayer  is  a  precedent,  as  well  as  a  pat- 
tern, for  forms  of  prayer.  Our  Lord  appears,  if  not 
to  have  prescribed,  at  least  to  have  authorized,  the 
use  of  fixed  forms,  when  he  complied  with  the  request 
of  the  disciple  who  said  unto  him,  "  Lord,  teach  us  to 
pray,  as  John  also  taught  his  disciples."  Luke,  xi.  1. 

The  properties  required  in  a  public  liturgy  are,  that 
it  be  compendious;  that  it  express  just  conceptions  of 
the  Divine  Attributes;  that  it  recite  such  wants  as  a 
congregation  are  linely  to  feel,  and  no  other;  and 
that  it  contain  as  few  controverted  propositions  as 
possible. 

1.  That  it  be  compendious. 

It  were  no  difficult  task  to  contract  the  liturgies  of 
most  churches  into  half  their  present  compass,  and 
yet  retain  every  distinct  petition,  as  well  as  the  sub- 

VOL,.  n.  4 


38  FORMS  OF  PRAYER. 

stance  of  every  sentiment,  which  can  be  found  in 
them.  But  brevity  may  be  studied  too  much.  The 
composer  of  a  liturgy  must  not  sit  down  to  his  work 
with  the  hope,  that  the  devotion  of  the  congregation 
will  be  uniformly  sustained  throughout,  or  that  every 
part  will  be  attended  to  by  every  hearer.  If  this  could 
be  depended  upon,  a  very  short  service  would  be  suf- 
ficient for  every  purpose  that  can  be  answered  or  de- 
signed by  social  worship:  but  seeing  the  attention  of 
most  men  is  apt  to  wander  and  return  at  intervals, 
and  by  starts,  he  will  admit  a  certain  degree  of  am- 
plification and  repetition,  of  diversity  of  expression 
upon  the  same  subject,  and  variety  of  phrase  and 
form  with  little  addition  to  the  sense,  to  the  end  that 
the  attention  which  has  been  slumbering  or  absent 
during  one  part  of  the  service,  may  be  excited  and 
recalled  by  another;  and  the  assembly  kept  togethei 
until  it  may  reasonably  be  presumed,  that  the  most 
heedless  and  inadvertent  have  performed  some  act  of 
devotion,  and  the  most  desultory  attention  been  caught 
by  some  part  or  other  of  the  public  service.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  too  great  length  of  church  services  is 
more  unfavourable  to  piety,  than  almost  any  fault  of 
composition  can  be.  It  begets,  in  many,  an  early 
and  unconquerable  dislike  to  the  public  worship  of 
their  country  or  communion.  They  come  to  church 
seldom;  and  enter  the  doors,  when  they  do  come, 
under  the  apprehension  of  a  tedious  attendance,  which 
they  prepare  for  at  the  first,  or  soon  after  relieve,  by 
composing  themselves  to  a  drowsy  forgetfulness  of  the 
place  and  duty,  or  by  sending  abroad  their  thoughts 
in  search  of  more  amusing  occupation.  Although 
there  may  be  some  few  of  a  disposition  not  to  be 
wearied  with  religious  exercises;  yet,  where  a  ritual 
is  prolix,  and  the  celebration  of  divine  service  long, 
no  effect  is  in  general  to  be  looked  for,  but  that  indo- 
lence will  find  in  it  an  excuse,  and  piety  be  discon- 
certed by  impatience. 

The  lengtli  and  repetitions  complained  of  in  our 
liturgy  are  not  so  much  the  fault  of  the  compilers,  as 
the  effect  of  uniting  into  one  service  what  v,  as  origi- 
nally, but  with  very  little  regard  to  the  convenicncy 


FORMS  OF  PRAYER. 

of  the  people,  distributed  into  three.  Notwithstand- 
ing that  dread  of  innovations  in  religion,  which  seems 
to  have  become  the  panic  of  the  age,  few,  I  should 
suppose,  would  be  displeased  with  such  omissions, 
abridgments,  or  change  in  the  arrangement,  as  the 
combination  of  separate  services  must  necessarily  re- 
quire, even  supposing  each  to  have  been  faultless  in 
itself.  If,  together  with  these  alterations,  the  Epis- 
tles and  Gospels,  and  Collects  which  precede  them, 
were  composed  and  selected  with  more  regard  to 
unity  of  subject  and  design;  and  the  Psalms  and 
Lessons  either  left  to  the  choice  of  the  minister,  or 
better  accommodated  to  the  capacity  of  the  audience, 
and  the  edification  of  modern  life;  the  church  of 
England  would  be  in  possession  of  a  liturgy,  in  which 
those  who  assent  to  her  doctrines  would  have  little  to 
blame,  and  the  most  dissatisfied  must  acknowledge 
many  beauties.  The  style  throughout  is  excellent; 
calm,  without  coldness;  and,  though  every  where  se- 
date, oftentimes  affecting.  The  pauses  in  the  service 
are  disposed  at  proper  intervals.  The  transitions 
from  one  office  of  devotion  to  another,  from  confession 
to  prayer,  from  prayer  to  thanksgiving,  from  thanks- 
giving to  *«  hearing  of  the  word,"  are  contrived,  like 
scenes  in  the  drama,  to  supply  the  mind  with  a  suc- 
cession of  diversified  engagements.  As  much  variety 
is  introduced  also  in  the  form  of  praying,  as  this  kind 
of  composition  seems  capable  of  admitting.  The 
prayer  at  one  time  is  continued;  at  another,  broken 
by  responses,  or  cast  into  short  alternate  ejaculations: 
and  sometimes  the  congregation  is  called  upon  to  take 
its  share  in  the  service,  by  being  left  to  complete  a 
sentence  which  the  minister  had  begun.  The  enu- 
meration of  human  wants  and  sufferings  in  the  Litany 
is  almost  complete.  A  Christian  petitioner  can  have 
few  things  to  ask  of  God,  or  to  deprecate,  which  he 
will  not  find  there  expressed,  and  for  the  most  part 
with  inimitable  tenderness  and  simplicity. 

2.  That  it  express  just  conceptions  of  the  Divine 
Attributes. 

This  is  an  article  in  which  no  care  can  be  too  great. 
The  popular  notions  of  God  are  formed,  in  a  great 


40  FORMS  OF  PRAYER. 

measure,  from  the  accounts  which  the  people  receive 
of  his  nature  and  character  in  their  religious  assemblies. 
An  error  here  becomes  the  error  of  multitudes:  and 
as  it  is  a  subject  in  which  almost  every  opinion  leads 
the  way  to  some  practical  consequence,  the  purity  or 
depravation  of  public  manners  will  bo  affected,  amongst 
other  causes,  by  the  truth  or  corruption  of  the  public 
forms  of  worship. 

3.  That  it  recite  such  wants  as  the  congregation  are 
likely  to  feel,  and  no  other. 

Of  forms  of  prayer  which  offend  not  egregiously 
against  truth  and  decency,  that  has  the  most  merit 
which  is  best  calculated  to  keep  alive  the  devotion 
of  the  assembly.  It  wrere  to  be  wished,  therefore, 
that  every  part  of  a  liturgy  were  personally  applicable 
to  every  individual  in  the  congregation;  and  that  no- 
thing were  introduced  to  interrupt  the  passion,  or 
damp  the  flame,  which  it  is  not  easy  to  rekindle.  Upon 
this  principle,  the  state  prayers  in  our  liturgy  should 
be  fewer  and  shorter.  Whatever  may  be  pretended, 
the  congregation  do  not  feel  that  concern  in  the  sub- 
ject of  these  prayers,  which  must  be  felt  ere  ever  pray- 
ers be  made  to  God  with  earnestness.  The  state  style 
likewise  seems  unseasonably  introduced  into  these 
prayers,  as  ill  according  with  that  annihilation  of 
human  greatness,  of  which  every  act  that  carries  the 
mind  to  God  presents  the  idea. 

4.  That  it  contain  as  few  controverted  propositions 
as  possible. 

We  allow  to  each  church  the  truth  of  its  peculiar 
tenets,  and  all  the  importance  which  zeal  can  ascribe 
to  them.  We  dispute  not  here  the  right  or  the  expe- 
diency of  framing  creeds,  or  of  imposing  subscriptions. 
But  why  should  every  position  which  a  church  main- 
tains be  woven  with  so  much  industry  into  her  forms 
of  public  worship  ?  Some  are  offended,  and  some  are 
excluded:  this  is  an  evil  of  itself,  at  least  to  them , 
and  what  advantage  or  satisfaction  can  be  derived  to 
the  rest,  from  the  separation  of  their  brethren,  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine;  unless  it  were  a  duty  to  publish 
our  system  of  polemic  divinity,  under  the  name  of 
making  confession  of  our  faith,  every  time  we  worship 


SABBATICAL    INSTITUTIONS.  41 

God;  or  a  sin  to  agree  in  religious  exercises  with 
those  from  whom  we  differ  in  some  religious  opinions. 
Indeed,  where  one  man  thinks  it  his  duty  constantly 
to  worship  a  being,  whom  another  cannot,  with  the 
assent  of  his  conscience,  permit  himself  to  worship  at 
all,  there  seems  to  be  no  place  for  comprehension,  or 
any  expedient  left  but  a  quiet  secession.  All  other 
differences  may  be  compromised  by  silence.  If  sects 
and  schemes  be  an  evil,  they  are  as  much  to  be 
avoided  by  one  side  as  the  other.  If  sectaries  are  blam- 
ed for  taking  unnecessary  offence,  established  churches 
are  no  less  culpable  for  unnecessarily  giving  it;  they 
are  bound  at  least  to  produce  a  command,  or  a  rea- 
son of  equivalent  utility,  for  shutting  out  any  from 
their  communion,  by  mixing  with  divine  worship  doc- 
trines which,  whether  true  or  false,  are  unconnected 
in  their  nature  with  devotion. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OF  THE   USE   OF  SABBATICAL,  INSTITUTIONS. 

AN  assembly  cannot  be  collected,  unless  the  time 
of  assembling  be  fixed  and  known  beforehand:  and  if 
the  design  of  the  assembly  require  that  it  be  holden 
frequently,  it  is  easiest  that  it  should  return  at  stated 
intervals.  This  produces  a  necessity  of  appropriating 
set  seasons  to  the  social  offices  of  religion.  It  is  also 
highly  convenient  that  the  same  seasons  be  observed 
throughout  the  country,  that  all  may  be  employed,  or 
all  at  leisure,  together;  for  if  the  recess  from  worldly 
occupation  be  not  general,  one  man's  business  will 
perpetually  interfere  with  another  man's  devotion; 
the  buyer  will  be  calling  at  the  shop  when  the  seller 
is  gone  to  church.  This  part,  therefore,  of  the  reli- 
gious distinction  of  seasons,  namely  a  general  intermis- 
sion of  labour  and  business  during  times  previously 
set  apart  for  the  exercise  of  public  worship,  is  found- 
ed in  the  reasons  which  make  public  worship  itself  a 

VOL..   II.  4  * 


42  SABBATICAL,   INSTITUTIONS. 

duty.  But  the  celebration  of  divine  service  never  oc- 
cupies the  whole  day.  What  remains,  therefore,  of 
Sunday,  beside  the  part  of  it  employed  at  church, 
must  be  considered  as  a  mere  rest  from  the  ordinary 
occupations  of  civil  life:  and  he  who  would  defend 
the  institution,  as  it  is  required  by  law  to  be  observed 
in  Christian  countries,  unless  he  can  produce  a  com- 
mand for  a  Christian  Sabbath,  must  point  out  the 
uses  of  it  in  that  view.  ( 

First,  then,  that  interval  of  relaxation  which  Sun- 
day affords  to  the  laborious  part  of  mankind,  contri- 
butes greatly  to  the  comfort  and  satisfaction  of  their 
lives,  both  as  it  refreshes  them  for  the  time,  and  as  it 
relieves  their  six  days'  labour  by  the  prospect  of  a  day 
of  rest  always  approaching;  which  could  not  be  said 
of  casual  indulgences  of  leisure  and  rest,  even  were 
they  more  frequent  than  there  is  reason  to  expect  they 
would  be,  if  left  to  the  discretion  or  humanity  of  inter 
ested  task-masters.  To  this  difference  it  may  be  add- 
ed, that  holidays,  which  come  seldom  and  unexpected, 
are  unprovided,  wrhen  they  do  come,  with  any  duty 
or  employment;  and  the  manner  of  spending  their 
being  regulated  by  no  public  decency  or  established 
usage,  they  are  commonly  consumed  in  rude,  if  nol 
criminal  pastimes,  in  stupid  sloth,  or  brutish  intern 
perance.  Whoever  considers  how  much  sabbatical  in- 
stitutions conduce,  in  this  respect,  to  the  happiness 
and  civilization  of  the  labouring  classes  of  mankind, 
and  reflects  how  great  a  majority  of  the  human  species 
these  classes  compose,  will  acknowledge  the  utility, 
whatever  he  may  believe  of  the  origin,  of  this  distinc- 
tion ;  and  will  consequent!  v  perceive  it  to  be  every  man's 
duty  to  uphold  the  observation  of  Sunday,  when  once 
established,  let  the  establishment  have  proceeded  from 
whom  or  from  what  authority  it  will. 

Nor  is  there  any  tiling  lost  to  the  community  by 
the  intermission  of  public  industry  one  day  in  the 
week.  For,  in  countries  tolerably  advanced  in  popu- 
lation, and  the  arts  of  civil  life,  there  is  always  enough 
of  human  labour,  and  to  spare.  The  difficulty  is  not 
so  much  to  procure  as  to  employ  it.  The  addition 
of  the  seventh  dav's  labour  to  that  of  the  other  six 


SABBATICAL    INSTITUTIONS.  43 

would  have  no  other  effect  than  to  reduce  the  price. 
The  labourer  himself,  who  deserved  and  suffered  most 
by  the  change,  would  gam  nothing. 

2.  Sunday,   by  suspending  many  public  diversions 
and   the  ordinary   rotation  of  employment,  leaves  to 
men  of  all  ranks   and    professions  sufficient   leisure, 
and  not  more  than  what  is  sufficient,  both  for  the  ex- 
ternal  offices  of   Christianity,    and  the    retired,  but 
equally  necessary  duties  of  religious  meditation  and 
inquiry.     It  is  true,  that   many   do  not  convert  their 
leisure  to  this  purpose;  but  it  is  of  moment,  and  is  all 
which  a  public  constitution  can  effect,  that  every  one 
be  allowed  the  opportunity. 

3.  They,  whose  humanity  embraces  the  whole  sen- 
sitive creation,  will  esteem  it  no  inconsiderable  recom- 
mendation of  a  weekly  return  of  public  rest,  that  it 
affords   a  respite   to  the   toil  of  brutes.     Nor  can  we 
omit  to  recount  this  among  the  uses  which  the  Divine 
Founder  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  expressly  appointed  a 
law  of  the  institution. 

We  admit,  that  none  of  these  reasons  show  why 
Sunday  should  be  preferred  to  any  other  day  in  the 
week,  or  one  day  in  seven  to  one  day  in  six,  or  eight* 
but  these  points,  which  in  their  nature  are  of  arbitrary 
determination,  being  established  to  our  hands,  our 
obligation  applies  to  the  subsisting  establishment,  so 
long  as  we  confess  that  some  such  institution  is  neces- 
sary, and  are  neither  able,  nor  attempt  to  substitute 
any  other  in  its  place. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

OF  THE  SCRIPTURE  ACCOUNT  OF  SABBATICAL 
INSTITUTIONS. 

THE  subject,  so  far  as  it  makes  any  part  of  Chris- 
tian morality,  is  contained  in  two  questions: — 

1.  Whether  the  command,  by  which  the  Jewish 
Sabbath  was  instituted,  extends  to  Christians  ? 


44  SABBATICAL,  INSTITUTIONS. 

2.  Whether  any  new  command  was  delivered  by 
Christ;  or  any  other  day  substituted  in  the  place  of 
the  Jewish  Sabbath  by  the  authority  or  example  of 
his  apostles  ? 

In  treating  of  the  first  question,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  collect  the  accounts  which  are  preserved  of  the 
institution  in  the  Jewish  history:  for  the  seeing  these 
accounts  together,  and  in  one  point  of  view,  will  be 
the  best  preparation  for  the  discussing  or  judging  of 
any  arguments  on  one  side  or  the  other. 

In  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  historian 
having  concluded  his  account  of  the  six  days'  crea- 
tion, proceeds  thus:  "  And  on  the  seventh  day  God 
ended  his  work  which  he  had  made:  and  God  blessed 
the  seventh  day  and  sanctified  it,  because  that  in  it  he 
had  rested  from  all  his  work  which  God  created  and 
made."  After  this  we  hear  no  more  of  the  sabbath, 
or  of  the  seventh  day,  as  in  any  manner  distinguished 
from  the  other  six,  until  the  history  brings  us  down 
to  the  sojourning  of  the  Jews  in  the  wilderness,  when 
the  following  remarkable  passage  occurs.  Upon  the 
complaint  of  the  people  for  want  of  food,  God  was 
pleased  to  provide  for  their  relief  by  a  miraculous 
supply  of  manna,  which  was  found  every  morning 
upon  the  ground  about  the  camp;  "  and  they  gathered 
it  every  morning,  every  man  according  to  his  eating: 
and  when  the  sun  waxed  hot,  it  melted:  and  it  came 
to  pass,  that  on  the  sixth  day  they  gathered  twice  as 
much  bread,  two  omers  for  one  man:  and  all  the 
rulers  of  the  congregation  came  and  told  Moses:  and 
he  said  unto  them,  This  is  that  which  the  Lord  hath 
said,  To-morrow  is  the  rest  of  the  holy  sabbath  unto 
the  Lord;  bake  that  which  ye  will  bake,  to-day,  and 
seethe  that  ye  will  seethe;  and  that  which  remaineth 
over,  lay  up  for  you,  to  be  kept  until  the  morning. 
And  they  laid  it  up  till  the  morning,  as  Moses  bade; 
and  it  did  not  stink  [as  it  had  done  before,  when 
some  of  them  left  it  till  the  morning,]  neither  was 
there  any  worm  therein.  And  Moses  said,  Eat  that 
to-day;  for  to-day  is  a  sabbath  unto  the  Lord ;  to-day 
ye  shall  not  find  it  in  the  field.  Six  days  ye  shall 
gather  it,  but  on  the  seventh  day,  which  is  the  sab- 


SABBATIC  A  L   INSTITUTIONS.  45 

bath,  in  it  there  shall  be  none  And  it  came  to  pass, 
that  there  went  out  some  of  the  people  on  the  seventh 
day  for  to  gather,  and  they  found  none.  And  the 
Lord  said  unto  Moses,  How  long  refuse  ye  to  keep 
my  commandments  and  my  laws  ?  See,  for  that  the 
Lord  hath  given  you  the  sabbath,  therefore  that  he 
giveth  you  on  the  sixth  day  the  bread  of  two  days: 
abide  ye  every  man  in  his  place;  let  no  man  go  out 
of  his  place  on  the  seventh  day.  So  the  people  rested 
on  the  seventh  day."  Exodus,  xvi. 

Not  long  after  this,  the  sabbath,  as  is  well  known, 
was  established  with  great  solemnity,  in  the  fourth 
commandment. 

Now,  in  my  opinon,  the  transaction  in  the  wilder- 
ness above  recited  was  the  first  actual  institution  of 
the  sabbath.  For  if  the  sabbath  had  been  instituted 
at  the  time  of  the  creation,  as  the  words  in  Genesis 
may  seem  at  first  sight  to  import;  and  if  it  had  been 
observed  all  along  from  that  time  to  the  departure  of 
the  Jews  out  of  Egypt,  a  period  of  about  two  thousand 
five  hundred  years;  it  appears  unaccountable  that  no 
mention  of  it,  no  occasion  of  even  the  obscurest  allu- 
sion to  it  should  occur,  either  in  the  general  history 
of  the  world  before  the  call  of  Abraham,  which  con- 
tains, we  admit,  only  a  few  memoirs  of  its  early  ages, 
and  those  extremely  abridged;  or,  which  is  more  to 
be  wondered  at,  in  that  of  the  lives  of  the  first  three 
Jewish  patriarchs,  which  in  many  parts  of  the  account 
is  sufficiently  circumstantial  and  domestic.  Nor  is 
there  in  the  passage  above  quoted  from  the  sixteenth 
chapter  of  Exodus,  any  intimation  that  the  sabbath, 
when  appointed  to  be  observed,  was  only  the  revival  of 
an  ancient  institution,  which  had  been  neglected,  for- 
gotten, or  suspended;  nor  is  any  such  neglect  imputed 
either  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  old  world,  or  to  any 
part  of  the  family  of  Noah;  nor,  lastly,  is  any  per- 
mission recorded  to  dispense  with  the  institution 
during  the  captivity  of  the  Jews  in  Egypt,  or  on  any 
other  public  emergency. 

The  passage  in  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis, 
which  creates  the  whole  controversy  upon  the  subject, 
is  not  inconsistent  with  this  opinion:  for,  as  the  seventh 


46  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

day  was  erected  into  a  sabbath,  on  account  of  God'9 
resting  upon  that  day  from  the  work  of  the  creation, 
it  was  natural  enough  in  the  historian,  when  he  had 
related  the  history  of  the  creation,  and  of  God's  ceas- 
ing from  it  on  the  seventh  day,  to  add:  "  And  God 
blessed  the  seventh  day,  and  sanctified  it,  because 
that  on  it  he  had  rested  from  all  his  work  which  God 
created  and  made;"  although  the  blessing  and  sanc- 
tification,  i.  e.  the  religious  distinction  and  appropria- 
tion of  that  day,  were  not  actually  made  till  many 
ages  afterwards.  The  words  do  not  assert  that  God 
then  "  blessed"  and  "  sanctified"  the  seventh  day,  but 
that  he  blessed  and  sanctified  it  for  that  reason ;  and 
if  any  ask,  why  the  sabbath,  or  sanctification  of  the 
seventh  day,  was  then  mentioned,  if  it  was  not  then 
appointed,  the  answer  is  at  hand:  the  order  of  con- 
nexion, and  not  of  time,  introduced  the  mention  of  the 
sabbath,  in  the  history  of  the  subject  which  it  was 
ordained  to  commemorate. 

This  interpretation  is  strongly  supported  by  a  pas- 
sage in  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  where  the  sabbath  is 
plainly  spoken  of  as  given  (and  what  else  can  that 
mean,  but  as  first  instituted!)  in  the  wilderness. 
"  Wherefore  I  caused  them  to  go  forth  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  and  brought  them  into  the  wilderness:  and 
I  gave  them  my  statutes  and  showed  them  my  judg- 
ments, which  if  a  man  do,  he  shall  even  live  in  them: 
moreover  also  I  gave  them  my  sabbaths,  to  be  a  sign 
between  me  and  them,  that  they  might  know  that  I 
am  the  Lord  that  sanctify  them."  Ezek.  xx.  10, 
11,  12. 

Nehemiah  also  recounts  the  promulgation  of  the 
sabbatic  law  amongst  the  transactions  in  the  wilder- 
ness: which  supplies  another  considerable  argument 
in  aid  of  our  opinion: — "  Moreover,  thou  leddest  them 
in  the  day  by  a  cloudy  pillar,  and  in  the  night  by  a 
pillar  of  fire,  to  give  them  light  in  the  way  wherein 
they  should  go.  Thou  earnest  down  also  upon  Mount 
Sinai,  and  spakcst  with  them  from  heaven,  and  gavest 
them  right  judgments  and  true  laws,  good  statutes 
and  commandments;  and  madest  known  unto  them 
thy  holy  sabbath  ;  and  commandedst  them  precepts, 


SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS.  47 

statutes,  and  laws  by  the  hand  of  Moses  thy  servant; 
and  gavest  them  bread  from  heaven  for  their  hunger, 
and  broughtest  forth  water  for  them  out  of  the  rock."* 
Nehem.  ix.  12. 

If  it  be  inquired  what  duties  were  appointed  for  the 
Jewish  sabbath,  and  under  what  penalties  and  in  what 
manner  it  was  observed  amongst  the  ancient  Jews; 
we  find  that,  by  the  fourth  commandment,  a  strict 
cessation  from  work  was  enjoined,  not  only  upon  Jews 
by  birth  or  religious  profession,  but  upon  all  who  re- 
sided within  the  limits  of  the  Jewish  state;  that  the 
same  was  to  be  permitted  to  their  slaves  and  their 
cattle;  that  this  rest  was  not  to  be  violated  under  pain 
of  death:  **  Whosoever  doeth  any  work  in  the  sab- 
bath day,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death."  Exod. 
xxxi.  15.  Beside  which,  the  seventh  day  was  to  be 
solemnized  by  double  sacrifices  in  the  temple: — "  And 
on  the  sabbath  day  two  lambs  of  the  first  year  without 
spot,  and  two  tenth  deals  of  flour  for  a  meatoffering- 
mingled  with  oil,  and  the  drinkoffering  thereof;  this 
is  the  burntoffering  of  every  sabbath,  beside  the  con- 
tinual burntoffering  and  his  drinkoffering."  Numb. 
Jtxviii.  9,  10.  Also,  holy  convocations,  which  mean, 
we  presume,  assemblies  for  the  purpose  of  public  wor- 
ship or  religious  instruction,  were  directed  to  be  hoi- 
den  on  the  sabbath  day:  "  the  seventh  day  is  a  sabbath 
of  rest,  a  holy  convocation."  Levit.  xxiii.  3. 

And  accordingly  we  read,  that  the  sabbath  was  in 
fact  observed  amongst  the  Jews  by  a  scrupulous  absti- 
nence from  every  thing  which,  by  any  possible  con- 


*  From  the  mention  of  the  sabbath  in  so  close  a  connexion 
with  the  descent  of  God  upon  Mount  Sinai,  and  the  delive- 
ry of  the  law  from  thence,  one  would  be  inclined  to  believe, 
that  Nehemiah  referred  solely  to  the  fourth  commandment. 
But  the  fourth  commandment  certainly  did  not  first  make 
known  the  sabbath.  And  it  is  apparent  that  Nehemiah  ob- 
served not  the  order  of  events,  for  he  speaks  of  what  passed 
upon  Mount  Sinai  before  he  mentions  the  miraculous  sup- 
plies of  bread  and  water,  though  the  Jews  did  not  arrive  at 
Mount  Sinai  till  some  time  after  both  these  miracles  were 
wrought. 


48  8ABBA.TICA.L  INSTITUTIONS 

struction,  could  be  deemed  labour;  as  from  dressing 
meat,  from  travelling  beyond  a  sabbath  day's  journey, 
or  about  a  single  mile.  In  the  Maccabean  wars,  they 
suffered  a  thousand  of  their  number  to  be  slain,  rather 
than  do  any  thing  in  their  own  defence  on  the  sabbath 
day.  In  the  final  siege  of  Jerusalem,  after  they  had 
so  far  overcome  their  scruples  as  to  defend  their  per- 
sons when  attacked,  they  refused  any  operation  on  the 
sabbath  day,  by  which  they  might  have  interrupted 
the  enemy  in  filling  up.  the  trench.  After  the  esta- 
blishment of  synagogues  (of  the  origin  of  which  we 
have  no  account,)  it  was  the  custom  to  assemble  in 
them  on  the  sabbath  day,  for  the  purpose  of  hearing 
the  law  rehearsed  and  explained,  and  for  the  exercise, 
it  is  probable,  of  public  devotion:  "  For  Moses  of  old 
time  hath  in  every  city  them  that  preach  him,  being 
read  in  the  synagogues  every  sabbath  day."  The 
seventh  day  is  Saturday  ;  and,  agreeably  to  the  Jew- 
ish way  of  computing  the  day,  the  sabbath  held  from 
six  o'clock  on  the  Friday  evening  to  six  o'clock  on 
Saturday  evening. — These  observations  being  pre- 
mised, we  approach  the  main  question,  Whether  the 
command  by  which  the  Jewish  sabbath  was  instituted 
extended  to  us  ? 

If  the  Divine  command  was  actually  delivered  at 
the  creation,  it  was  addressed,  no  doubt,  to  the  whole 
human  species  alike,  and  continues,  unless  repealed 
by  some  subsequent  revelation,  binding  upon  all  who 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  it.  If  the  command  was 
published  for  the  first  time  in  the  wilderness,  then  it 
was  immediately  directed  to  the  Jewish  people  alone; 
and  something  further,  either  in  the  subject  or  circum- 
stances of  the  command,  will  be  necessary  to  show, 
that  it  was  designed  for  any  other.  It  is  on  this  ac- 
count that  the  question  concerning  the  date  of  the 
institution  wras  first  to  be  considered.  The  former 
opinion  precludes  all  debate  about  the  extent  of  the 
obligation;  the  latter  admits,  and,  prima  facie,  indu- 
ces a  belief,  that  the  sabbath  ought  to  be  considered 
as  part  of  the  peculiar  law  of  the  Jewish  policy. 

Which  belief  receives  great  confirmation  from  th* 
following  arguments  — 


SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS.  49 

The  sabbath  is  described  as  a  sign  between  God 
and  the  people  of  Israel: — "  Wherefore  the  children 
of  Israel  shall  keep  the  sabbath,  to  observe  the  sab- 
bath throughout  their  generations  for  a  perpetual 
covenant;  U  is  a  sign  between  me  and  the  children 
of  Israel  for  ever.9'  Exodus,  xxxi.  16,  17.  Again: 
"  And  I  gave  them  my  statutes,  and  showed  them  my 
judgments,  which  if  a  man  do  he  shall  even  live  in 
them;  moreover  also  I  give  them  my  sabbaths,  to 
be  a  sign  between  me  and  them,  that  they  might 
know  that  I  am  the  Lord  that  sanctify  them."  Ezek. 
xx.  12.  Now  it  does  riot  seem  easy  to  understand 
how  the  sabbath  could  be  a  sign  between  God  and 
the  people  of  Israel,  unless  the  observance  of  it  was 
peculiar  to  that  people,  and  designed  to  be  so. 

The  distinction  of  the  sabbath  is,  in  its  nature,  as 
much  a  positive  ceremonial  institution,  as  that  of 
many  other  seasons  which  were  appointed  by  the 
Levitical  law  to  be  kept  holy,  and  to  be  observed  by  a 
strict  rest;  as  the  first  and  seventh  days  of  unleavened 
bread;  the  feast  of  Pentecost;  the  feast  of  Taberna- 
cles: and  in  the  twenty-third  chapter  of  Exodus,  the 
sabbath  and  these  are  recited  together. 

If  the  command  by  which  the  sabbath  was  insti- 
tuted be  binding  upon  Christians,  it  must  be  binding 
as  to  the  day,  the  duties,  and  the  penalty;  in  none  of 
which  it  is  received. 

The  observance  of  the  sabbath  was  not  one  of  the 
articles  enjoined  by  the  Apostles,  in  the  fifteenth  chap- 
ter of  Acts,  upon  them  "  which  from  among  the  Gen- 
tiles were  turned  unto  God." 

St.  Paul  evidently  appears  to  have  considered  the 
sabbath  as  part  of  the  Jewish  ritual,  and  not  obliga- 
tory upon  Christians  as  such: — "  Let  no  man  there- 
fore judge  you  in  meat  or  in  drink,  or  in  respect  of  an 
holy  day,  or  of  the  new  moon,  or  of  the  sabbath  days, 
which  are  a  shadow  of  things  to  come,  but  the  body  is 
of  Christ."  Col.  ii.  16,  17. 

I  am  aware  of  only  two  objections  which  can  be 
opposed  tothe4force  of  these  arguments:  one  is,  that 
the  reason  assigned  in  the  fourth  commandment  for 
hallowing  the  seventh  day,  namely,  "  because  God 

VOL,.  II.  5 


50  SABBATICAL,  INSTITUTIONS. 

rested  on  the  seventh  day  from  the  work  of  the  crea- 
tion," is  a  reason  which  pertains  to  all  mankind;  the 
other,  that  the  command  which  enjoins  the  observance 
of  the  sabbath  is  inserted  in  the  Decalogue,  of  which 
all  the  other  precepts  and  prohibitions  are  of  moral 
and  universal  obligation. 

Upon  the  first  objection  it  may  be  remarked,  that 
although  in  Exodus  the  commandment  is  founded  upon 
God's  rest  from  the  creation,  in  Deuteronomy  the 
commandment  is  repeated  with  a  reference  to  a  dif- 
ferent event: — "  Six  days  shalt  thou  labour,  and  do 
all  thy  work;  but  the  seventh  day  is  the  sabbath  of 
the  Lord  thy  God:  in  it  thou  shalt  not  do  any  work; 
thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter,  nor  thy  man  ser- 
vant, nor  thy  maid  servant,  nor  thine  ox,  nor  thine 
ass,  nor  any  of  thy  cattle,  nor  the  stranger  that  is 
within  thy  gates;  that  thy  man  servant  and  thy  maid 
servant  may  rest  as  well  as  thou:  and  remember  that 
thou  wast  a  servant  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  that  the 
Lord  thy  God  brought  thee  out  thence,  through  a 
mighty  hand,  and  by  a  stretched  out  arm;  therefore 
the  Lord  thy  God  commanded  thee  to  keep  the  sab- 
bath day."  It  is  further  observable,  that  God's  rest 
from  the  creation  is  proposed  as  the  reason  of  the  in- 
stitution, even  where  the  institution  itself  is  spoken  of 
as  peculiar  to  the  Jews: — "  Wherefore  the  children  of 
Israel  shall  keep  the  sabbath,  to  observe  the  sabbath 
throughout  their  generations,  for  a  perpetual  cove- 
nant: it  is  a  sign  between  me  and  the  children  of 
Israel  for  ever:  for  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven 
and  earth,  and  on  the  seventh  day  he  rested  and  was 
refreshed."  The  truth  is,  these  different  reasons  were 
assigned,  to  account  for  different  circumstances  in  the 
command.  If  a  Jew  inquired,  why  the  seventh  day 
was  sanctified  rather  than  the  sixth  or  eighth  ?  his 
law  told  him,  because  God  rested  on  the  seventh  day 
from  the  creation.  If  he  asked,  why  was  the  same 
rest  indulged  to  slaves?  his  law  bade  him  remember 
that  he  also  was  a  slave  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
c*  that  the  Lord  his  God  brought  him  out  thence."  In 
this  view,  the  two  reasons  are  perfectly  compatible 
with  each  other,  and  with  a  third  end  of  the  mstitu- 


SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS.  51 

tion,  its  being  a  sign  between  God  and  the  people  of 
Israel;  but  in  this  view  they  determine  nothing  con- 
cerning the  extent  of  the  obligation.  If  the  reason  by 
its  proper  energy  had  constituted  a  natural  obligation, 
or  if  it  had  been  mentioned  with  a  view  to  the  extent 
of  the  obligation,  we  should  submit  to  the  conclusion 
that  all  were  comprehended  by  the  command  who  are 
concerned  in  the  reason.  But  the  sabbatic  rest  being 
a  duty  which  results  from  the  ordination  and  autho- 
rity of  a  positive  law,  the  reason  can  be  alleged  no 
further  than  as  it  explains  the  design  of  the  legislator: 
and  if  it  appear  to  be  recited  with  an  intentional  ap- 
plication to  one  part  of  the  law,  it  explains  his  design 
upon  no  other:  if  it  be  mentioned  merely  to  account 
for  the  choice  of  the  day,  it  does  not  explain  his  de- 
sign as  to  the  extent  of  the  obligation. 

With  respect  to  the  second  objection,  that  inas- 
much as  the  other  nine  commandments  are  confess- 
edly of  moral  and  universal  obligation,  it  may  reason- 
ably be  presumed  that  this  is  of  the  same;  we  answer, 
that  this  argument  will  have  less  weight  when  it  is 
considered,  that  the  distinction  between  positive  and 
natural  duties,  like  other  distinctions  of  modern  ethics, 
was  unknown  to  the  simplicity  of  ancient  language- 
and  that  there  are  various  passages  in  Scripture,  in 
\\  hich  duties  of  a  political  or  ceremonial  or  positive 
nature,  and  confessedly  of  partial  obligation,  are  enu- 
merated, and  without  any  mark  of  discrimination, 
along  with  others  which  are  natural  and  universal. 
Of  this  the  following  is  an  incontestable  example. 
"But  if  a  man  be  just,  and  do  that  which  is  lawful 
and  right;  and  hath  not  eaten  upon  the  mountains, 
nor  hath  lifted  up  his  eyes  to  the  idols  of  the  house 
of  Israel;  neither  hath  defiled  his  neighbour's  wife; 
neither  hath  come  near  to  a  menstruous  woman ;  arid 
hath  not  oppressed  any,  but  hath  restored  to  the  debt- 
or his  pledge;  hath  spoiled  none  by  violence;  hath 
given  his  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  hath  covered  the 
naked  with  a  garment ;  he  that  hath  not  given  upon 
usury,  neither  hath  taken  any  increase  ;  that  hath 
withdrawn  his  hand  from  iniquity;  hath  executed 
true  judgment  between  man  and  man;  hath  walked 


52  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

in  my  statutes,  and  hath  kept  my  judgments,  to  deal 
truly;  he  is  just,  he  shall  surely  live,  saith  fhe  Lord 
God."  Ezekiel,  xviii.  5 — 9.  The  same  thing  may 
be  observed  of  the  apostolic  decree  recorded  in  the 
fifteenth  chapter  of  the  Acts: — "  It  seemed  good  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  us,  to  lay  upon  you  no  greater 
burden  than  these  necessary  things,  that  ye  abstain 
from  meats  offered  to  idols,  and  from  blood,  and  from 
things  strangled,  and  from  fornication :  from  which 
if  ye  keep  yourselves,  ye  shall  do  well." 

2.  If  the  law  by  which  the  sabbath  was  instituted 
was  a  law  only  to  the  Jews,  it  becomes  an  important 
question  with  the  Christian  inquirer,  whether  the 
founder  of  his  religion  delivered  any  new  command 
upon  the  subject;  or,  if  that  should  not  appear  to  be 
the  case,  whether  any  day  was  appropriated  to  the 
service  of  religion  by  the  authority  or  example  of  his 
Apostles. 

The  practice  of  holding  religious  assemblies  upon 
the  first  day  of  the  week  was  so  early  and  universal 
in  the  Christian  church,  that  it  carries  with  it  consi- 
derable proof  of  having  originated  from  some  precept 
of  Christ,  or  of  his  Apostles,  though  none  such  be 
now  extant.  It  was  upon  the  first  day  of  the  week 
that  the  disciples  were  assembled,  when  Christ  ap- 
peared to  them  for  the  first  time  after  his  resurrection: 
"  then  the  same  day  at  evening,  being  the  first  day  of 
the  week,  when  the  doors  were  shut  where  the  disci- 
ples, were  assembled,  for  fear  of  the  Jews,  came  Jesus, 
and  stood  in  the  midst  of  them."  John,  xx.  19. 
This,  for  any  thing  that  appears  in  the  account,  might, 
as  to  the  day,  have  been  accidental;  but  in  the  26th 
verse  of  the  same  chapter  we  read,  that  "  after  eight 
days,'1  that  is,  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  following 
"  again  the  disciples  were  within;"  which  second 
meeting  upon  the  same  day  of  the  week  looks  like  an 
appointment  and  design  to  meet  on  that  particular 
day.  In  the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  t*e  find  the  same  custom  in  a  Christian 
church  at  a  great  distance  from  Jerusalem: — "  And 
we  came  unto  them  to  Troas  in  five  days,  where  we 
abode  seven  days;  and  upon  the  first  day  of  the  iveek, 


SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS.  58 

wften  the  disciples  came  together  to  break  bread,  Paul 
preached  unto  them."  Acts,  xx.  6,  7.  The  manner 
in  which  the  historian  mentions  the  disciples  coming 
together  to  break  bread  on  the  first  day  of  the  week 
shows,  I  think,  that  the  practice  by  this  time  was 
familiar  and  established.  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians 
writes  thus:  "  Concerning  the  collection  for  the  saints, 
as  I  have  given  order  to  the  churches  of  Galatia,  even 
so  do  ye;  upon  the  first  day  of  the  meek  let  every  one 
of  you  lay  by  him  in  store  as  God  hath  prospered 
him,  that  there  be  no  gathering  when  I  come.'1  1  Cor. 
xvi.  1,  2.  Which  direction  affords  a  probable  proof, 
that  the  first  day  of  the  week  was  already,  amongst 
the  Christians  both  of  Corinth  and  Galatia,  distin- 
guished from  the  rest  by  some  religious  application  or 
other.  At  the  time  that  St.  John  wrote  the  book  of 
his  Revelation,  the  first  day  of  the  week  had  obtained 
the  name  of  the  Lord's  day  : — "  I  was  in  the  spirit, " 
says  he,  "  on  the  Lord's  day."  Rev.  i.  10.  Which 
name,  and  St.  John^s  use  of  it,  sufficiently  denote  the 
appropriation  of  this  day  to  the  service  of  religion,  and 
that  this  appropriation  was  perfectly  known  to  the 
churches  of  Asia.  I  make  no  doubt  that  by  the  Lord's 
day  was  meant  the^rs^  day  of  the  week;  for  we  find 
no  footsteps  of  any  distinction  of  days,  which  could 
entitle  any  other  to  that  appellation.  The  subsequent 
history  of  Christianity  corresponds  with  the  accounts 
delivered  on  this  subject  in  Scripture. 

It  will  be  remembered,  that  we  are  contending,  by 
these  proofs,  for  no  other  duty  upon  the  first  day  of 
the  week,  than  that  of  holding  and  frequenting  reli- 
gious assemblies.  A  cessation  upon  that  day  from 
labour,  beyond  the  time  of  attendance  upon  public 
worship,  is  not  intimated  in  any  passage  of  the  New 
Testament;  nor  did  Christ  or  his  Apostles  deliver, 
that  we  know  of,  any  command  to  their  disciples  for 
a  discontinuance,  upon  that  day,  of  the  common 
offices  of  their  professions:  a  reserve  which  none  will 
see  reason  to  wonder  at, or  to  blame  as  a  defect  in  the 
institution,  who  consider  that,  in  the  primitive  condi- 
tion of  Christianity,  the  observance  of  a  ne\v  sabbath 
would  have  been  useless  or  inconvenient  or  impracti- 

VOL.  II  5  * 


54  SABBATICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

cable.  During  Christ's  personal  ministry,  his  reli- 
gion was  preached  to  the  Jews  alone.  They  already 
had  a  sabbath,  which,  as  citizens  and  subjects  of  that 
economy,  they  were  obliged  to  keep;  and  did  keep. 
It  was  not  therefore  probable  that  Christ  would  enjoin 
another  day  of  rest  in  conjunction  with  this.  When 
the  new  religion  came  forth  into  the  Gentile  world, 
converts  to  it  were,  for  the  most  part,  made  from 
those  classes  of  society  who  have  not  their  time  and 
labour  at  their  own  disposal;  and  it  was  scarcely  to 
be  expected,  that  unbelieving  masters  and  magistrates, 
and  they  who  directed  the  employment  of  others, 
would  permit  their  slaves  and  labourers  to  rest  from 
their  work  every  seventh  day;  or  that  civil  govern- 
ment, indeed,  would  have  submitted  to  the  loss  of  a 
seventh  part  of  the  public  industry,  and  that  too  in 
addition  to  the  numerous  festivals  which  the  national 
religions  indulged  to  the  people:  at  least,  this  would 
have  been  an  encumbrance  which  might  have  great- 
ly retarded  the  reception  of  Christianity  in  the  world. 
In  reality,  the  institution  of  a  weekly  sabbath  is  so 
connected  with  the  functions  of  civil  life,  and  requires 
so  much  of  the  concurrence  of  civil  law  in  its  regula- 
tion and  support,  that  it  cannot,  perhaps,  properly  be 
made  the  ordinance  of  any  religion,  till  that  religion 
be  received  as  the  religion  of  the  state. 

The  opinion,  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles  meant  to 
retain  the  duties  of  the  Jewish  sabbath,  shifting  only 
the  day  from  the  seventh  to  the  first,  seems  to  prevail 
without  sufficient  proof;  nor  does  any  evidence  re- 
main in  Scripture  (of  what,  however,  is  not  improba- 
ble,) that  the  first  day  of  ihe  week  was  thus  distin- 
guished in  commemoration  of  our  Lord's  resurrection. 

The  conclusion  from  the  whole  inquiry  (for  it  is 
our  business  to  follow  the  arguments,  to  whatever 
probability  they  conduct  us)  is  this:  The  assembling 
upon  the  first  day  of  the  week  for  the  purpose  of 
public  worship  and  religious  instruction  is  a  law  of 
Christianity,  of  Divine  appointment;  the  resting  on 
that  day  from  our  employments  longer  than  we  are 
detained  from  them  by  attendance  upon  these  assem- 
blies is  to  Christians  an  ordinance  of  human  insti- 


VIOLATION  OF  THE   SABBATH.  55 

tution;  binding  nevertheless  upon  the  conscience  of 
every  individual  of  a  country  in  which  a  weekly  sab- 
bath is  established,  for  the  sake  of  the  beneficial  pur- 
poses which  the  public  and  regular  observance  of  it 
promotes;  and  recommended  perhaps  in  some  de- 
gree to  the  Divine  approbation,  by  the  resemblance  it 
bears  to  what  God  was  pleased  to  make  a  solemn  part 
of  the  law  which  he  delivered  to  the  people  of  Israel, 
and  by  its  subserviency  to  many  of  the  same  uses. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

BY  WHAT  ACTS  AND  OMISSIONS  THE  DUTY  OF  THE 
CHRISTIAN  SABBATH   IS   VIOLATED. 

SINCE  the  obligation  upon  Christians  to  comply 
with  the  religious  observance  of  Sunday  arises  from 
the  public  uses  of  the  institution  and  the  authority  of 
the  apostolic  practice,  the  manner  of  observing  it 
ought  to  be  that  which  best  fulfils  these  uses,  and 
conforms  the  nearest  to  this  practice. 

The  uses  proposed  by  the  institution  are: — 

1.  To  facilitate  attendance  upon  public  worship. 

2.  To    meliorate    the    condition  of   the  laborious 
classes  of  mankind,  by  regular  and  seasonable  returns 
of  rest. 

3.  By   a  general  supension  of  business  and  amuse- 
ment,  to   invite   and  enable  persons  of  everv  descrip- 
tion  to  apply  their  time  and  thoughts  to  subjects  ap- 
pertaining to  their  salvation. 

With  the  primitive  Christians,  the  peculiar,  and 
probably  for  some  time  the  only,  distinction  of  the 
first  day  of  the  week,  was  the  holding  of  religious 
assemblies  upon  that  day.  We  learn,  however,  from 
the  testimony  of  a  very  early  writer  amongst  them, 
that  they  also  reserved  the  day  for  religious  medita- 
tions;—  Unusquisque  nostrum  (saith  Irenceus^)  sab- 
batizat  spiritualiter ,  meditation  legis,gaudens,  opi- 
ficium  Dei  admirans 


56  VIOLATION   OF  THE   SABBATH. 

WHEREFORE  the  duty  of  the  day  is  violated, 

1st,  By  all  such  employments  or  engagements  as 
(though  differing  from  our  ordinary  occupation,)  hin- 
der our  attendance  upon  public  worship,  or  take  up  so 
much  of  our  time  as  not  to  leave  a  sufficient  part  of 
the  day  at  leisure  for  religious  reflection;  as  the  going 
of  journeys,  the  paying  or  receiving  of  visits  which 
engage  the  whole  day,  or  employing  the  time  at  home 
in  writing  letters,  settling  accounts,  or  in  applying 
ourselves  to  studies,  or  the  reading  of  books,  which 
bear  no  relation  to  the  business  of  religion. 

2dly,  By  unnecessary  encroachments  on  the  rest 
and  liberty  which  Sunday  ought  to  bring  to  the  infe- 
rior orders  of  the  community;  as  by  keeping  servants 
on  that  day  confined  and  busied  in  preparations  for 
the  superfluous  elegances  of  our  table  or  dress. 

3dly,  By  such  recreations  as  are  customarily  for- 
borne out  of  respect  to  the  day;  as  hunting,  shooting, 
fishing,  public  diversions,  frequenting  taverns,  play- 
ing at  cards  or  dice. 

If  it  be  asked,  as  it  often  has  been,  wherein  consists 
the  difference  between  walking  out  with  your  staff,  or 
with  your  gun  ?  between  spending  the  evening  at 
home,  or  in  a  tavern  ?  between  passing  the  Sunday 
afternoon  at  a  game  of  cards,  or  in  conversation  not 
more  edifying,  nor  always  so  inoffensive  ? — to  these, 
and  to  the  same  question  under  a  variety  of  forms, 
and  in  a  multitude  of  similar  examples,  we  return  the 
following  answer: — That  the  religious  observance  of 
Sunday,  if  it  ought  to  be  retained  at  all,  must  be  up- 
holden  by  some  public  and  visible  distinctions: — 
that,  draw  the  line  of  distinction  where  you  will,  many 
actions  which  are  situated  on  the  confines  of  the  line 
will  differ  very  little,  and  yet  lie  on  the  opposite  sides 
of  it: — that  every  trespass  upon  that  reserve  which 
public  decency  has  established  breaks  down  the  fence 
by  which  the  day  is  separated  to  the  service  of  reli- 
gion : — that  it  is  unsafe  to  trifle  with  scruples  and 
habits  that  have  a  beneficial  tendency,  although  found- 
ed merely  in  custom: — that  these  liberties,  however 
intended,  will  certainly  be  considered  by  those  who 
observe  them,  not  only  as  disrespectful  to  the  day  and 


REVERENCING   THE  DEITY.  57 

institution,  but  as  proceeding  from  a  secret  contempt 
of  the  Christian  faith: — that,  consequently,  they  di- 
minish a  reverence  for  religion  in  others,  so  far  as  the 
authority  of  our  opinion,  or  the  efficacy  of  our  exam- 
ple, reaches;  or  rather,  so  far  as  either  will  serve  for 
an  excuse  of  negligence  to  those  who  are  glad  of  any: 
— that  as  to  cards  and  dice,  which  put  in  their  claim 
to  be  considered  among  the  harmless  occupations  of 
a  vacant  hour,  it  may  be  observed,  that  few  find  any 
difficulty  in  refraining  from  play  on  Sunday,  except 
they  who  sit  down  to  it  with  the  views  and  eagerness 
of  gamesters: — that  gaming  is  seldom  innocent:— 
that  the  anxiety  and  perturbations,  however,  which  it 
excites,  are  inconsistent  with  the  tranquillity  and  frame 
of  temper  in  which  the  duties  and  thoughts  of  religion 
should  always  both  find  and  leave  us: — and  lastly  we 
shall  remark,  that  the  example  of  other  countries, 
where  the  same  or  greater  licence  is  allowed^  affords 
no  apology  for  irregularities  in  our  own;  because  a 
practice  which  is  tolerated  by  public  usage  neither  re- 
ceives the  same  construction,  nor  gives  the  same  of- 
fence, as  where  it  is  censured  and  prohibited. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF    REVERENCING  THE  DEITt. 

IN  many  persons,  a  seriousness  and  sense  of  awe 
overspread  the  imagination,  whenever  the  idea  of  the 
Supreme  Being  is  presented  to  their  thoughts.  This 
effect,  which  forms  a  considerable  security  against 
vice,  is  the  consequence  not  so  much  of  reflection  as 
of  habit;  which  habit  being  generated  by  the  exter- 
nal expressions  of  reverence  which  we  use  ourselves, 
or  observe  in  others,  may  be  destroyed  by  causes  op- 
posite to  these,  and  especially  by  that  familiar  levity 
with  which  some  learn  to  speak  of  the  Deity,  of  his 
attributes,  providence,  revelations,  or  worship. 

God  hath  been  ^leased  (no  matter  for  what  reason, 


58  REVEREXCIXG  THE  DEITF 

although  probably  for  this,)  to  forbid  the  vain  mention 
of  his  name: — "  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the 
Lord  thy  God  in  vain."  Now  the  mention  is  vain 
when  it  is  useless;  and  it  is  useless  when  it  is  neither 
likely  nor  intended  to  serve  any  good  purpose;  as 
when  it  flows  from  the  lips  idle  and  unmeaning,  or  is 
applied,  on  occasions  inconsistent  with  any  considera- 
tion of  religion  and  devotion,  to  express  our  anger, 
our  earnestness,  our  courage,  or  our  mirth;  or  indeed 
when  it  is  used  at  all,  except  in  acts  of  religion,  or  in 
serious  and  seasonable  discourse  upon  religious  sub- 
jects. 

The  prohibition  of  the  third  commandment  is  re- 
cogm'sed  by  Christ,  in  his  sermon  upon  the  mount; 
which  sermon  adverts  to  none  but  the  moral  parts  of 
the  Jewish  law:  "  I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all: 
but  let  your  communication  be  Yea,  yea;  Nay,  nay: 
for  whatsoever  is  more  than  these  cometh  of  evil." 
The  Jews  probably  interpreted  the  prohibition  as  re- 
strained to  the  name  JEHOVAH,  the  name  which  the 
Deity  had  appointed  and  appropriated  to  himself* 
Exod.  vi.  3.  The  words  of  Christ  extend  the  prohi- 
bition beyond  the  name  of  God,  to  every  thing  asso- 
ciated with  the  idea: — "  Swear  not,  neither  by  hea- 
ven, for  it  is  God's  throne;  nor  by  the  earth,  for  it  ig 
his  footstool;  neither  by  Jerusalem,  for  it  is  the  city 
of  the  Great  King."  Matt.  v.  35. 

The  offence  of  profane  swearing  is  aggravated  by 
the  consideration,  that  in  it  duty  and  decency  are  sa- 
crificed to  the  slenderest  of  temptations.  Suppose  the 
habit,  either  from  affectation,  or  by  negligence  and 
inadvertency,  to  be  already  formed,  it  must  always 
remain  within  the  power  of  the  most  ordinary  resolu- 
tion to  correct  it;  and  it  cannot,  one  would  think,  cost 
a  great  deal  to  relinquish  the  pleasure  and  honour 
which  it  confers.  A  concern  for  duty  is  in  fact  never 
strong,  when  the  exertion  requisite  to  vanquish  a  ha- 
bit founded  in  no  antecedent  propensity  is  thought 
too  much  or  too  painful. 

A  contempt  of  positive  duties,  or  rather  of  those 
duties  for  which  the  reason  is  not  so  plain  as  the  com- 
mand, indicates  a  disposition  upon  which  the  autho- 


REVERENCING  THE  DEITY  59 

rity  of  revelation  has  obtained  little  influence. — This 
remark  is  applicable  to  the  offence  of  profane  swear- 
ing, and  describes,  perhaps  pretty  exactly,  the  general 
character  of  those  who  are  most  addicted  to  it. 

Mockery  and  ridicule,  when  exercised  upon  the 
Scriptures,  or  even  upon  the  places,  persons,  and 
forms  set  apart  for  the  ministration  of  religion,  fall 
within  the  meaning  of  the  law  which  forbids  the  pro- 
fanation of  God's  name;  especially  as  that  law  is 
extended  by  Christ's  interpretation.  They  are  more- 
over inconsistent  with  a  religious  frame  of  mind:  for, 
as  no  one  ever  either  feels  himself  disposed  to  plea- 
santry, or  capable  of  being  diverted  with  the  plea- 
santry of  others,  upon  matters  in  which  he  is  deeply 
interested;  so  a  mind  intent  upon  the  acquisition  of 
heaven  rejects  with  indignation  every  attempt  to  en- 
tertain it  with  jests,  calculated  to  degrade  or  deride 
subjects  which  it  never  recollects  but  with  seriousness 
and  anxiety.  Nothing  but  stupidity,  or  the  most  fri- 
volous dissipation  of  thought,  can  make  even  the  in- 
considerate forget  the  supreme  importance  of  every 
thing  which  relates  to  the  expectation  of  a  future  ex- 
istence. Whilst  the  infidel  mocks  at  the  superstitions 
of  the  vulgar,  insults  over  their  credulous  fears,  their 
childish  errors,  or  fantastic  rites,  it  does  not  occur  to 
him  to  observe,  that  the  most  preposterous  device  by 
which  the  weakest  devotee  ever  believed  he  was  se- 
curing the  happiness  of  a  future  life,  is  more  rational 
than  unconcern  about  it.  Upon  this  subject,  nothing 
is  so  absurd  as  indifference ;  no  folly  so  contemptible 
as  thoughtlessness  and  levity. 

Finally  ;  The  knowledge  of  what  is  due  to  the  so- 
lemnity of  those  interests,  concerning  which  Revela- 
tion professes  to  inform  and  direct  us,  may  teach  even 
those  who  are  least  inclined  to  respect  the  prejudices 
of  mankind,  to  observe  a  decorum  in  the  style  and 
conduct  of  religious  disquisitions,  with  the  neglect  of 
which  many  adversaries  of  Christianity  are  justly 
chargeable.  Serious  arguments  are  fair  on  all  sides. 
Christianity  is  but  ill  defended  by  refusing  audience 
or  toleration  to  the  objections  of  unbelievers.  But 
whilst  we  would  have  freedom  of  inquiry  restrained 


60  REVERENCING  THE   DEITY. 

by  no  laws  but  those  of  decency,  we  are  entitled  to 
demand,  on  behalf  of  a  religion  which  holds  forth  to 
mankind  assurances  of  immortality,  that  its  credit  be 
assailed  by  no  other  weapons  than  those  of  sober  dis- 
cussion and  legitimate  reasoning; — that  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  Christianity  be  never  made  a  topic  of 
raillery,  a  theme  for  the  exercise  of  wit  or  eloquence, 
or  a  subject  of  contention  for  literary  fame  and  vic- 
tory;— that  the  cause  be  tried  upon  its  merits; — that 
all  applications  to  the  fancy,  passions,  or  prejudices  of 
the  reader,  all  attempts  to  preoccupy,  ensnare,  or 
perplex  his  judgment,  by  any  art,  influence,  or  im- 
pression whatsoever,  extrinsic  to  the  proper  grounds 
arid  evidence  upon  which  his  assent  ought  to  proceed, 
be  rejected  from  a  question  which  involves  in  its  de- 
termination the  hopes,  the  virtue,  and  the  repose  of 
millions; — that  the  controversy  be  managed  on  both 
sides  with  sincerity;  that  is,  that  nothing  be  produced, 
in  the  writings  of  either,  contrary  to  or  beyond  the 
writer's  own  knowledge  and  persuasion; — that  object- 
tions  and  difficulties  be  proposed,  from  no  other  mo- 
tive than  an  honest  and  serious  desire  to  obtain  satis- 
faction, or  to  communicate  information  which  may 
promote  the  discovery  and  progress  of  truth; — that, 
in  conformity  with  this  design,  every  thing.be  stated 
with  integrity,  with  method,  precision,  and  simplicity; 
and  above  all,  that  whatever  is  published  in  opposi- 
tion to  received  and  confessedly  beneficial  persua- 
sions, be  set  forth  under  a  form  which  is  likely  to  in- 
vite inquiry  and  to  meet  examination.  If  with  these 
moderate  and  equitable  conditions  be  compared  the 
manner  in  which  hostilities  have  been  waged  against 
the  Christian  religion,  not  only  the  votaries  of  the 
prevailing  faith,  but  every  man  who  looks  forward 
with  anxiety  to  the  destination  of  his  being,  will  see 
much  to  blame  and  to  complain  of.  By  one  unbe- 
liever, all  the  follies  which  have  adhered,  in  a  long 
course  of  dark  and  superstitious  ages,  to  the  popular 
creed,  are  assumed  as  so  many  doctrines  of  Christ  and 
his  Apostles,  for  the  purpose  of  subverting  the  whole 
system  by  the  absurdities  which  it  is  thus  represented 
to  contain  By  another,  the  ignorance  and  vices  of 


REVERENCING    THE    DEITY.  61 

the  sacerdotal  order,  their  mutual  dissensions  ana 
persecutions,  their  usurpations  and  encroachments 
upon  the  intellectual  liberty  and  civil  rights  of  man- 
kind, have  been  displayed  with  no  small  triumph  and 
invective;  not  so  much  to  guard  the  Christian  laity 
against  a  repetition  of  the  same  injuries  (which  is  the 
only  proper  use  to  be  made  of  the  most  flagrant  exam- 
ples of  the  past,)  as  to  prepare  the  way  for  an  insi- 
nuation, that  the  religion  itself  is  nothing  but  a  pro- 
fitable fable,  imposed  upon  the  fears  and  credulity  of 
the  multitude,  and  upheld  by  the  frauds  and  influence 
of  an  interested  and  crafty  priesthood.  And  yet,  how 
remotely  is  the  character  of  the  clergy  connected  with 
the  truth  of  Christianity  !  What,  after  all,  do  the  most 
disgraceful  pages  of  ecclesiastical  history  prove,  but 
that  the  passions  of  our  common  nature  are  not  al- 
tered or  excluded  by  distinctions  of  name,  and  that 
the  characters  of  men  are  formed  much  more  by  the 
temptations  than  the  duties  of  their  profession  ?  A 
third  finds  delight  in  collecting  and  repeating  ac- 
counts of  wars  and  massacres,  of  tumults  and  insurrec- 
tions, excited  in  almost  every  age  of  the  Christian  era 
by  religious  zeal;  as  though  the  vices  of  Christians 
were  parts  of  Christianity;  intolerance  and  extirpa- 
tion precepts  of  the  gospel;  or  as  if  its  spirit  could  be 
judged  of  from  the  counsels  of  princes,  the  intrigues 
of  statesmen,  the  pretences  of  malice  and  ambition,  or 
the  unauthorized  cruelties  of  some  gloomy  and  viru- 
lent superstition.  By  a  fourth,  the  succession  and 
variety  of  popular  religions;  the  vicissitudes  with 
which  sects  and  tenets  have  flourished  and  decayed; 
the  zeal  with  which  they  were  once  supported,  the 
negligence  with  which  they  are  now  remembered; 
the  little  share  which  reason  and  argument  appear  to 
have  had  in  framing  the  creed,  or  regulating  the  reli- 
gious conduct  of  the  multitude;  the  indifference  and 
submission  with  which  the  religion  of  the  state  is  ge- 
nerally received  by  the  common  people;  the  caprice 
and  vehemence  with  which  it  is  sometimes  opposed; 
the  frenzy  with  which  men  have  been  brought  to  con- 
tend for  opinions  and  ceremonies,  of  which  they  knew 
neither  the  proof,  the  meaning,  nor  the  original: 

VOL.   II  6 


62  REVERENCING    THE    DEITT. 

lastly,  the  equal  and  undoubting  confidence  with 
which  we  hear  the  doctrines  of  Christ  or  of  Confu- 
cius, the  law  of  Moses  or  of  Mahomet,  the  Bible,  the 
Koran,  or  the  Shaster,  maintained  or  anathematized, 
taught  or  abjured,  revered  or  derided,  according  as 
we  live  on  this  or  on  that  side  of  a  river;  keep  within 
or  step  over  the  boundaries  of  a  state;  or  even  in  the 
same  country,  and  by  the  same  people,  so  often  as 
the  event  of  a  battle,  or  the  issue  of  a  negotiation,  de- 
livers them  to  the  dominion  of  a  new  master; — 
points,  I  say,  of  this  sort  are  exhibited  to  the  public 
attention,  as  so  many  arguments  against  the  truth  of 
the  Christian  religion; — and  with  success.  For  these 
topics  being  brought  together,  and  set  off  with  some 
aggravation  of  circumstances,  and  with  a  vivacity  of 
style  and  description  familiar  enough  to  the  writings 
and  conversation  of  free-thinkers,  insensibly  lead  the 
imagination  into  a  habit  of  classing  Christianity  with 
the  delusions  that  have  taken  possession,  by  turns,  of 
the  public  belief;  and  of  regarding  it  as,  what  the 
scoffers  odf  our  faith  represent  it  to  be,  the  superstition 
of  the  day.  But  is  this  to  deal  honestly  by  the  sub- 
ject, or  with  the  world  ?  May  not  the  same  things  be 
said,  may  not  the  same  prejudices  be  excited  by  these 
representations,  whether  Christianity  be  true  or  false, 
or  by  whatever  proofs  its  truth  be  attested  ?  May  not 
truth  as  well  as  falsehood  be  taken  upon  credit  ?  May 
not  a  religion  be  founded  upon  evidence  accessible 
and  satisfactory  to  every  mind  competent  to  the  in- 
quiry, which  yet,  by  the  greatest  part  of  its  professors, 
is  received  upon  authority  ? 

Bift  if  the  matter  of  these  objections  be  reprehensi- 
ble, as  calculated  to  produce  an  effect  upon  the 
reader  beyond  what  their  real  weight  and  place  in  the 
argument  deserve,  still  more  shall  we  discover  of  ma- 
nagement and  disingenuousness  in  the  form  under 
which  they  are  dispersed  among  the  public.  Infideli- 
ty is  served  up  in  every  shape  that  is  likely  to  allure, 
surprise,  or  beguile  the  imagination;  in  a  fable,  a 
tale,  a  novel,  a  poem;  in  interspersed  and  broken 
hints,  remote  and  oblique  surmises;  in  books  of  tra- 
vels, of  philosophy,  of  natural  histoiy;  in  a  word,  in 


REVERENCING    THE    DEITY.  63 

any  form  rather  than  the  right  one,  that  of  a  professed 
and  regular  disquisition.  And  because  the  coarse 
buffoonery  and  broad  laugh  of  the  old  and  rude  ad- 
versaries of  the  Christian  faith  would  offend  the  taste, 
perhaps,  rather  than  the  virtue,  of  this  cultivated  age, 
a  graver  irony,  a  more  skilful  and  delicate  banter  is 
substituted  in  their  place.  An  eloquent  historian, 
beside  his  more  direct,  and  therefore  fairer,  attacks 
upon  the  credibility  of  Evangelic  story,  has  contrived 
to  weave  into  his  narration  one  continued  sneer  upon 
the  cause  of  Christianity,  and  upon  the  writings  and 
characters  of  its  ancient  patrons.  The  knowledge 
which  this  author  possesses  of  the  frame  and  conduct 
of  the  human  mind  must  have  led  him  to  observe, 
that  such  attacks  do  their  execution  without  inquiry. 
Who  can  refute  a  sneer1)  Who  can  compute  the  num- 
ber, much  less,  one  by  one,  scrutinize  the  justice  of 
those  disparaging  insinuations  which  crowd  the  pages 
of  this  elaborate  history  ?  What  reader  suspends  his 
curiosity,  or  calls  off  his  attention  from  the  principal 
narrative,  to  examine  references,  to  search  into  the 
foundation,  or  to  weigh  the  reason,  propriety,  and 
force  of  every  transient  sarcasm  and  sly  allusion,  by 
which  the  Christian  testimony  is  -depreciated  and  tra- 
duced; and  by  which,  nevertheless,  he  may  find  his 
persuasion  afterwards  unsettled  and  perplexed  ? 

But  the  enemies  of  Christianity  have  pursued  her 
with  poisoned  arrows.  Obscenity  itself  is  made  the 
vehicle  of  infidelity.  The  awful  doctrines,  if  we  be 
not  permitted  to  call  them  the  sacred  truths,  of  our 
religion,  together  with  all  the  adjuncts  and  appen- 
dages of  its  worship  and  external  profession,  have 
been  sometimes  impudently  profaned  by  an  unnatural 
conjunction  with  impure  and  lascivious  images.  The 
fondness  for  ridicule  is  almost  universal;  and  ridicule 
to  many  minds  is  never  so  irresistible  as  when  sea- 
soned with  obscenity,  and  employed  upon  religion. 
But  in  proportion  as  these  noxious  principles  take 
hold  of  the  imagination,  they  infatuate  the  judgment: 
for  trains  of  ludicrous  and  unchaste  associations,  ad- 
hering to  every  sentiment  and  mention  of  religion, 
render  the  mind  indisposed  to  receive  either  convic- 


64  REVERENCING    THE    DEITY. 

tion  from  its  evidence,  or  impressions  from  its  autho- 
rity. And  this  effect  being  exerted  upon  the  sensi- 
tive part  of  our  frame,  is  altogether  independent  of 
argument,  proof,  or  reason;  is  as  formidable  to  a  true 
religion  as  to  a  false  one;  to  a  well  grounded  faith 
as  to  a  chimerical  mythology,  or  fabulous  tradition. 
Neither,  let  it  be  observed,  is  the  crime  or  danger  less, 
because  impure  ideas  are  exhibited  under  a  veil,  in 
covert  and  chastised  language. 

Seriousness  is  not  constraint  of  thought;  nor  levity, 
freedom.  Every  mind  which  wishes  the  advance- 
ment of  truth  and  knowledge,  in  the  most  important 
of  all  human  researches,  must  abhor  this  licentiousness, 
as  violating  no  less  the  laws  of  reasoning  than  the 
rights  of  decency.  There  is  but  one  description  of 
men,  to  whose  principles  it  ought  to  be  tolerable;  I 
mean  that  class  of  reasoners  who  can  see  little  in 
Christianity,  even  supposing  it  to  be  true.  To  such 
adversaries  we  address  this  reflection: — Had  Jesus 
Christ  delivered  no  other  declaration  than  the  follow- 
ing, "The  hour  is  coming,  in  the  which  all  that  are 
in  the  grave  shall  hear  his  voice,  and  shall  come  forth; 
they  that  have  done  good  unto  the  resurrection  of  life; 
'ind  they  that  have  done  evil  unto  the  resurrection  of 
damnation;" — he  had  pronounced  a  message  of  ines- 
timable importance,  and  well  worthy  of  that  splendid 
apparatus  of  prophecy  and  miracles  with  which  his 
mission  was  introduced  and  attested;  a  message,  in 
which  the  wisest  of  mankind  would  rejoice  to  find  an 
answer  to  their  doubts,  and  rest  to  their  inquiries. 
It  is  idle  to  say,  that  a  future  state  had  been  discovered 
already: — it  had  been  discovered,  as  the  Copernican 
system  was — it  was  one  guess  among  many.  He 
alone  discovers  who  proves  ;  and  no  man  can  prove 
this  point  but  the  teacher  who  testifies  by  miracles 
that  his  doctrine  comes  from  God 


BOOK  VI. 

ELEMENTS  OF  POLITICAL  KNOWLEDGE 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF  THE  ORIGIN    OF  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

GOVERNMENT,  at  first,  was  either  patriarchal  or 
military:  that  of  a  parent  over  his  family,  or  of  a  com- 
mander over  his  fellow  warriors. 

1.  Paternal  authority,  and  the  order  of  domestic 
life,  supplied  the  foundation  of  civil  government.  Did 
mankind  spring  out  of  the  earth  mature  and  indepen- 
dent, it  would  be  found  perhaps  impossible  to  intro- 
duce subjection  and  subordination  among  them:  but 
the  condition  of  human  infancy  prepares  men  for  so- 
ciety, by  combining  individuals  into  small  communi- 
ties, and  by  placing  them  from  the  beginning  under 
direction  and  control.  A  family  contains  the  rudi- 
ments of  an  empire.  The  authority  of  one  over  many, 
and  the  disposition  to  govern  and  to  be  governed,  are 
in  this  way  incidental  to  the  very  nature,  and  coeval, 
no  doubt,  with  the  existence,  of  the  human  species. 

Moreover,  the  constitution  of  families  not  only  as- 
sists the  formation  of  civil  government,  by  the  dispo- 
sitions which  it  generates,  but  also  furnishes  the  first 
steps  of  the  process  by  which  empires  have  been  ac- 
tually reared.  A  parent  would  retain  a  considerable 
part  of  his  authority  after  his  children  were  grown  up, 
and  had  formed  families  of  their  own.  The  obedi- 
ence of  which  they  remembered  not  the  beginning, 
would  be  considered  as  natural;  and  would  scarcely 

VOL.  II.  6  * 


66  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

during  the  parent's  life,  be  entirely  or  abruptly  with- 
drawn. Here  then  we  see  the  second  stage  in  the 
progress  of  dominion.  The  first  was  that  of  a  pa- 
rent over  his  young  children;  this,  that  of  an  ancestor 
presiding  over  his  adult  descendants. 

Although  the  original  progenitor  was  the  centre  of 
union  to  his  posterity,  yet  it  is  not  probable  that  the 
association  would  be  immediately  or  altogether  dis- 
solved by  his  death.  Connected  by  habits  of  inter- 
course and  affection,  and  by  some  common  rights,  ne- 
cessities, and  interests,  they  would  consider  themselves 
as  allied  to  each  other  in  a  nearer  degree  than  to  the 
rest  of  the  species.  Almost  all  would  be  sensible  of 
an  inclination  to  continue  in  the  society  in  which  they 
had  been  brought  up;  and  experiencing,  as  they  soon 
would  do,  many  inconveniencies  from  the  absence  of 
that  authority  which  their  common  ancestor  exercised, 
especially  in  deciding  their  disputes,  and  directing 
their  operations  in  matters  in  which  it  was  necessary 
to  act  in  conjunction,  they  might  be  induced  to  supply 
his  place  by  a  formal  choice  of  a  successor;  or  rather 
might  willingly,  and  almost  imperceptibly,  transfer 
their  obedience  to  some  one  of  the  family,  who  by  his 
age  or  services,  or  by  the  part  he  possessed  in  the 
direction  of  their  affairs  during  the  lifetime  of  the 
parent,  had  already  taught  them  to  respect  his  advice, 
or  to  attend  to  his  commands:  or,  lastly,  the  prospect 
of  these  inconveniencies  might  prompt  the  first  ances- 
tor to  appoint  a  successor;  and  his  posterity,  from 
the  same  motive,  united  with  an  habitual  defence  to 
the  ancestor's  authority,  might  receive  the  appoint- 
ment with  submission.  Here  then  we  have  a  tribe  or 
clan  incorporated  under  one. chief.  Such  communities 
might  be  increased  by  considerable  numbers,  and  fulfil 
the  purposes  of  civil  union,  without  any  other  or  more 
regular  convention,  constitution,  or  form  of  govern- 
ment, than  what  we  have  described.  Every  branch 
which  was  slipped  off  from  the  primitive  stock,  and 
removed  to  a  distance  from  it,  would  in  like  manner 
take  root,  and  grow  into  a  separate  clan.  Two  or 
three  of  these  clans  were  frequently,  we  may  suppose, 
united  into  one.  Marriage,  conquest,  mutual  defence 


CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  07 

common  distress,  or  more  accidental  coalitions,  might 
produce  this  effect. 

2.  A  second  source  of  personal  authority,  and  which 
might  easily  extend,  or  sometimes  perhaps  supersede, 
the  patriarchal,  is  that  which  results  from  military 
arrangement.  In  wars,  either  of  aggression  or  defence, 
manifest  necessity  would  prompt  those  who  fought  on 
the  same  side  to  array  themselves  under  one  leader. 
And  although  their  leader  was  advanced  to  this  emi- 
nence for  the  purpose  only,  and  during  the  operations, 
of  a  single  expedition,  yet  his  authority  would  not 
always  terminate  with  the  reasons  for  which  it  was 
conferred.  A  warrior  who  had  led  forth  his  tribe 
against  their  enemies  with  repeated  success  would 
procure  to  himself,  even  in  the  deliberations  of  peace, 
a  powerful  and  permanent  influence.  If  this  advan- 
tage were  added  to  the  authority  of  the  patriarchal 
chief,  or  favoured  by  any  previous  distinction  of  an- 
cestry, it  would  be  no  difficult  undertaking  for  the 
person  who  possessed  it  to  obtain  the  almost  absolute 
direction  of  the  affairs  of  the  community;  especially 
if  he  was  careful  to  associate  to  himself  proper  aux- 
iliaries, and  content  to  practise  the  obvious  art  of 
gratifying  or  removing  those  who  opposed  his  pre- 
tensions. 

But,  although  we  may  be  able  to  comprehend  how, 
by  his  personal  abilities  or  fortune,  one  man  may 
obtain  the  rule  over  many,  yet  it  seems  more  difficult 
to  explain  how  empire  became  hereditary,  or  in  what 
manner  sovereign  power,  which  is  never  acquired 
without  great  merit  or  management,  learns  to  descend 
in  a  succession  which  has  no  dependence  upon  any 
qualities  either  of  understanding  or  activity.  The 
causes  which  have  introduced  hereditary  dominion 
into  so  general  a  reception  in  the  world  are  principally 
the  following: — the  influence  of  association,  which 
communicates  to  the  son  a  portion  of  the  same  respect 
which  was  wont  to  be  paid  to  the  virtues  or  station 
of  the  father;  the  mutual  jealcusy  of"  other  compe- 
titors; the  greater  envy  with  which  all  behold  the 
exaltation  of  an  equal,  than  the  continuance  of  an 
acknowledged  superiority — a  reigning  prince  leaving 


68  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

behind  him  many  adherents,  who  can  preserve  their 
own  importance  only  by  supporting  the  succession  of 
his  children:  add  to  these  reasons,  that  elections  to 
the  supreme  power,  having,  upon  trial,  produced  de- 
structive contentions,  many  states  would  take  refuge 
from  a  return  of  the  same  calamities  in  a  rule  of  suc- 
cession; and  no  rule  presents  itself  so  obvious,  certain, 
and  intelligible,  as  consanguinity  of  birth. 

The  ancient  state  of  society  in  most  countries,  and 
the  modern  condition  of  some  uncivilized  parts  of  the 
world,  exhibit  that  appearance  which  this  account  of 
the  origin  of  civil  government  would  lead  us  to  expect. 
The  earliest  histories  of  Palestine,  Greece,  Italy,  Gaul, 
Britain  inform  us,  that  these  countries  were  occupied 
by  many  small  independent  nations,  not  much  perhaps 
unlike  those  which  are  found  at  present  amongst 
the  savage  inhabitants  of  North  America,  and  upon 
the  coast  of  Africa.  Those  nations  I  consider  as 
the  amplifications  of  so  many  single  families  j  or  &s 
derived  from  the  junction  of  two  or  three  families, 
whom  society  in  war,  or  the  approach  of  some  com- 
mon danger,  had  united.  Suppose  a  country  to  have 
been  first  peopled  by  shipwreck  on  its  coasts,  or  by 
emigrants  or  exiles  from  a  neighbouring  country;  the 
new  settlers,  having  no  enemy  to  provide  against,  and 
occupied  with  the  care  of  their  personal  subsistence, 
would  think  little  of  digesting  a  system  of  laws,  of 
contriving  a  form  of  government,  or  indeed  of  any 
political  union  whatever;  but  each  settler  would  re- 
main at  the  head  of  his  own  family,  and  each  family 
would  include  all  of  every  age  and  generation  who 
were  descended  from  him.  So  many  of  these  families 
as  were  holden  together  after  the  death  of  the  original 
ancestor,  by  the  reasons  and  in  the  method  above  re- 
cited, would  wax,  as  the  individuals  were  multiplied, 
into  tribes,  clans,  hordes,  or  nations,  similar  to  those 
into  which  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  many  countries 
are  known  to  have  been  divided,  and  which  are  still 
found  wherever  the  state  of  society  and  manners  is 
immature  and  uncultivated. 

Nor  need  we  be  surprised  at  the  early  existence  in 
the  world  of  some  vast  empires,  or  as  the  rapidity  with 


SUBJECTION  TO  CIVIL.   GOVERNMENT  69 

which  they  advanced  to  their  greatness  from  compa- 
ratively small  and  obscure  originals.  Whilst  the  in- 
habitants of  so  many  countries  were  broken  into 
numerous  communities,  unconnected,  and  oftentimes 
contending  with  each  other;  before  experience  had 
taught  these  little  states  to  see  their  own  danger  in 
their  neighbour's  ruin;  or  had  instructed  them  in  the 
necessity  of  resisting  the  aggrandizement  of  an  aspir- 
ing power,  by  alliances  and  timely  preparations;  in 
this  condition  of  civil  policy,  a  particular  tribe,  which 
by  any  means  had  gotten  the  start  of  the  rest  in 
strength  or  discipline,  and  happened  to  fall  under  the 
conduct  of  an  ambitious  chief,  by  directing  their  first 
attempts  to  the  part  where  success  was  most  secure, 
and  by  assuming,  as  they  went  along,  those  whom 
they  conquered  into  a  share  of  their  future  enterprises, 
might  soon  gather  a  force  which  would  infallibly  over- 
bear any  opposition  that  the  scattered  power  and  un- 
provided state  of  such  enemies  could  make  to  the 
progress  of  their  victories. 

Lastly,  Our  theory  affords  a  presumption  that  the 
earliest  governments  were  monarchies,  because  the 
government  of  families,  and  of  armies,  from  which, 
according  to  our  account,  civil  government  derived 
its  institution,  and  probably  its  form,  is  universally 
monarchical. 


CHAPTER  II. 

HOW    SUBJECTION   TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  IB 
MAINTAINED. 

COULD  we  view  our  own  species  from  a  distance, 
or  regard  mankind  with  the  same  sort  of  observation 
with  which  we  read  the  natural  history,  or  remark  the 
manners,  of  any  other  animal,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
human  character  which  would  more  surprise  us,  than 
the  almost  universal  subjugation  of  strength  to  weak- 
ness}— than  to  see  many  millions  of  robust  men,  in 


70  SUBJECTION  TO  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  complete  use  and  exercise  of  their  personal  facul- 
ties, and  without  any  defect  of  courage,  waiting  upon 
the  will  of  a  child,  a  woman,  a  driveller,  or  a  lunatic. 
And  although,  when  we  suppose  a  vast  empire  in 
absolute  subjection  to  one  person,  and  that  one  de- 
pressed beneath  the  level  of  his  species  by  infirmities 
or  vice,  we  suppose  perhaps  an  extreme  case;  yet  in 
all  cases,  even  in  the  most  popular  forms  of  civil  go- 
vernment, the  physical  strength  resides  in  the  govern- 
ed. In  what  manner  opinion  thus  prevails  over  strength, 
or  how  power,  which  naturally  belongs  to  superior 
force,  is  maintained  in  opposition  to  it;  in  other  words, 
by  what  motives  the  many  are  induced  to  submit  to 
the  few,  becomes  an  inquiry  which  lies  at  the  root  of 
almost  every  political  speculation.  It  removes,  indeed, 
but  does  not  resolve,  the  difficulty,  to  say  that  civil 
governments  are  nowadays  almost  universally  up- 
holden  by  standing  armies;  for  the  question  still  re- 
turns, How  are  these  armies  themselves  kept  in  sub- 
jection, or  made  to  obey  the  commands,  and  carry 
on  the  designs  of  the  prince  or  state  which  employs 
them  ? 

Now,  although  we  should  look  in  vain  for  any  single 
reason  which  will  account  for  the  general  submission 
of  mankind  to  civil  government,  yet  it  may  not  be  dif- 
ficult to  assign  for  every  class  and  character  in  the 
community,  considerations  powerful  enough  to  dis- 
suade each  from  any  attempts  to  resist  established 
authority.  Every  man  has  his  motive,  though  not  the 
same.  In  this,  as  in  other  instances,  the  conduct  is 
similar,  but  the  principles  which  produce  it,  extremely 
various. 

There  are  three  distinctions  of  character,  into  which 
the  subjects  of  a  state  may  be  divided:  into  those  who 
obey  from  prejudice;  those  who  obey  from  reason, 
and  those  who  obey  from  self-interest. 

1.  They  who  obey  from  prejudice  are  determined 
by  an  opinion  of  right  in  their  governors  ;  which 
opinion  is  founded  upon  prescription.  In  monarchies 
and  aristocracies  which  are  hereditary,  the  prescrip- 
tion operates  in  favour  of  particular  families  ;  in  re- 
publics and  elective  offices,  in  favour  of  particular 


SUBJECTION   TO  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  71 

forms  of  government,  or  constitutions.  Nor  is  it  to 
be  wondered  at,  that  mankind  should  reverence  autho- 
rity founded  in  prescription,  when  they  observe  that 
it  is  prescription  which  confers  the  title  to  almost  every 
thing  else.  The  whole  course,  and  all  the  habits  of 
civil  life,  favour  this  prejudice.  Upon  what  other 
foundation  stands  any  man's  right  to  his  estate  ?  The 
right  of  primogeniture,  the  succession  of  kindred,  the 
descent  of  property,  the  inheritance  of  honours,  the 
demand  of  tithes,  tolls,  rents,  or  services,  from  the 
estates  of  others,  the  right  of  way,  the  powers  of  office 
and  magistracy,  the  privileges  of  nobility,  the  immu- 
nities of  the  clergy — upon  what  are  they  all  founded, 
in  the  apprehension  at  least  of  the  multitude,  but  upon 
prescription  ?  To  what  else,  when  the  claims  are  con- 
tested, is  the  appeal  made?  It  is  natural  to  transfer 
the  same  principle  to  the  affairs  of  government,  and 
to  regard  those  exertions  of  power,  which  have  been 
long  exercised  and  acquiesced  in,  as  so  many  rights 
in  the  sovereign  ;  and  to  consider  obedience  to  his 
commands,  within  certain  accustomed  limits,  as  en- 
joined by  that  rule  of  conscience  which  requires  us  to 
render  to  every  man  his  due. 

In  hereditary  monarchies,  the  prescriptive  title  is 
corroborated,  and  its  influence  considerably  augment- 
ed, by  an  accession  of  religious  sentiments,  and  by 
that  sacredness  which  men  are  wont  to  ascribe  to  the 
persons  of  princes.  Princes  themselves  have  not  failed 
to  take  advantage  of  this  disposition,  by  claiming  a 
superior  dignity,  as  it  were,  of  nature,  or  a  peculiar 
delegation  from  the  Supreme  Being.  For  this  pur- 
pose were  introduced  the  titles  of  Sacred  Majesty,  of 
God's  Anointed,  Representative,  Vicegerent,  together 
with  the  ceremonies  of  investitures  and  coronations, 
which  are  calculated  not  so  much  to  recognise  the 
authority  of  sovereigns  as  to  consecrate  their  persons. 
Where  a  fabulous  religion  permitted  it,  the  public 
veneration  has  been  challenged  by  bolder  pretensions. 
The  Roman  emperors  usurped  the  titles  and  arrogated 
the  worship  of  gods.  The  mythology  of  the  heroic 
ages,  and  of  many  barbarous  nations,  was  easily  con- 
verted to  this  purpose.  Some  princes,  like  the  heroes 


72  SUBJECTION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

of  Homer,  and  the  founder  of  the  Roman  name,  de- 
rived their  birth  from  the  gods;  others,  with  Numa, 
pretended  a  secret  communication  with  some  divine 
being;  and  others,  again,  like  the  incas  of  Peru,  and 
the  ancient  Saxon  kings,  extracted  their  descent  from 
the  deities  of  their  country.  The  Lama  of  Thibet,  at 
this  day,  is  held  forth  to  his  subjects,  not  as  the  off- 
spring or  successor  of  a  divine  race  of  princes,  but  as 
the  immortal  God  himself,  the  object  at  once  of  civil 
obedience  and  religious  adoration.  This  instance  is 
singular,  and  may  be  accounted  the  furthest  point  to 
which  the  abuse  of  human  credulity  has  ever  been 
carried.  But  in  all  these  instances  the  purpose  was 
the  same, — to  engage  the  reverence  of  mankind,  by 
an  application  to  their  religious  principles. 

The  reader  will  be  careful  to  observe,  that  in  this 
article,  we  denominate  every  opinion,  whether  true  or 
false,  a  prejudice,  which  is  not  founded  upon  argu- 
ment, in  the  mind  of  the  person  who  entertains  it. 

2.  They  who  obey  from  reason,  that  is  to  say,  from 
conscience  as  instructed  by  reasonings  and  conclusions 
of  their  own,  are  determined  by  the  consideration  of 
the  necessity  of  some  government  or  other;  the  certain 
mischief  of  civil  commotions;  and  the  danger  of  re- 
settling the  government  of  their  country  better,  or  at 
all,  if  once  subverted  or  disturbed. 

3.  They  who   obey  from  self  interest  are  kept  in 
order  by  want  of  leisure;  by  a   succession  of  private 
cares,  pleasures,  and   engagements;  by  contentment, 
or  a  sense  of  the  ease,  plenty,  and  safety,  which  they 
enjoy;  or  lastly,  and  principally,   by  fear,  foreseeing 
that  they  would  bring  themselves  by  resistance  into  a 
worse  situation  than  their  present,   inasmuch  as  the 
strength  of  government,  each  discontented  subject  re- 
flects, is  greater  than  his  o\vn,  and  he  knows  not  that 
others  would  join  him. 

This  last  consideration  has  often  been  called  opi- 
nion of  power. 

This  account  of  the  principles  by  which  mankind 
are  retained  in  their  obedience  to  civil  government 
may  suggest  the  following  cautions: — 

1.   Let  civil  governors  learn  hence  to  respect  their 


SUBJECTION  TO   CIVIL  GOVERNMENT.  78 

eubjects;  let  them  be  admonished,  that  the  physical 
strength  resides  in  the  governed;  that  this  strength 
wants  only  to  be  felt  and  roused,  to  lay  prostrate  the 
most  ancient  and  confirmed  dominion;  that  civil  au- 
thority is  founded  in  opinion;  that  general  opinion 
therefore  ought  always  to  be  treated  with  deference, 
and  managed  with  delicacy  and  circumspection. 

2.  Opinion  of  right,  always  following  the  custom, 
being  for  the  most  part  founded  in   nothing  else,  arid 
lending  one   principal  support   to  government;  every 
innovation   in  the  constitution,  or,   in  other  words,  in 
the   custom  of  governing,   diminishes   the  stability  of 
government.     Hence  some   absurdities  are   to  be  re- 
tained,  and  many   small   inconveniences   endured  in 
every  country,  rather  than   that  the  usage  should  be 
violated,  or  the  course  of  public  affairs  diverted  from 
their  old  and  smooth  channel.     Even  names  are  not 
indifferent.     When  the  multitude  are  to  be  dealt  with, 
there  is  a  charm  in  sounds.     It  was  upon  this  princi- 
ple that    several    statesmen  of  those    times    advised 
Cromwell  to  assume  the  title  of  king,  together  with 
the  ancient  style  and  insignia  of  royalty.     The  minds 
of  many,  they  contended,   would  be  brought  to  ac- 
quiesce in  the  authority  of  a  king,  who  suspected  the 
office,  and  were  offended  with  the  administration,  of 
a  protector.     Novelty  reminded  them  of  usurpation. 
The  adversaries  of  this  design  opposed  the  measure, 
from  the  same  persuasion  of  the  efficacy  of  names  and 
forms,  jealous  lest  the  veneration  paid  to  these  should 
add  an  influence  to  the  new  settlement,  which  might 
ensnare  the  liberty  of  the  commonwealth. 

3.  Government  may  be  too  secure.     The  greatest 
tyrants  have  been  those  whose  titles  were  the  most 
unquestioned.     Whenever    therefore   the    opinion   of 
right  becomes  too  predominant  and  superstitious,  it  is 
abated  by  breaking  the  custom.     Thus  the  Revolution 
broke  the  custom  of  succession,  and  thereby  mode- 
rated, both  in  the  prince  and  in  the  people,  those  lofty 
notions  of  hereditary  right,  which  in  the  one  were  be- 
come a  continual  incentive  to  tyranny,  and  disposed 
the  other  to  invite  servitude,  by  undue  compliances 
and  dangerous  concessions. 

VOJL.  II.  7 


74  SUBJECTION   TO   CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

4.  As  ignorance  of  union,  and  want  of  communica- 
tion, appear  amongst  the  principal  preservatives  of 
civil  authority,  it  behoves  every  state  to  keep  its  sub- 
jects in  this  want  and  ignorance,  not  only  by  vigilance 
in  guarding  against  actual  confederacies  and  combi- 
nations, but  by  a  timely  care  to  prevent  great  collec- 
tions of  men  of  any  separate  party  of  religion,  or  of 
like  occupation  or  profession,  or  in  any  way  connected 
by  a  participation  of  interest  or  passion,  from  being 
assembled  in  the  same  vicinity.  A  protestant  esta- 
blishment in  this  country  may  have  little  to  fear  from 
its  popish  subjects,  scattered  as  they  are  throughout 
the  kingdom,  and  intermixed  with  tbe  protestant  in- 
habitants, which  yet  might  think  them  a  formidable 
bodv  if  they  were  gathered  together  into  one  county 
The  most  frequent  and  desperate  riots  are  those  which 
break  out  amongst  men  of  the  same  profession,  as 
weavers,  miners,  sailors.  This  circumstance  makes  a 
mutiny  of  soldiers  more  to  be  dreaded  than  any  other 
insurrection.  Hence  also  one  danger  of  an  overgrown 
metropolis,  and  of  those  great  cities  and  crowded  dis- 
tricts, into  wiiich  the  inhabitants  of  trading  countries 
are  commonly  collected.  The  worst  effect  of  popular 
tumults  consists  in  this,  that  they  discover  to  the  in- 
surgents the  secret  of  their  own  strength,  teach  them 
to  depend  upon  it  against  a  future  occasion,  and  both 
produce  and  diffuse  sentiments  of  confidence  in  one 
another,  and  assurances  of  mutual  support.  Leagues 
thus  formed  and  strengthened  may  overawe  or  over- 
set the  power  of  any  state;  and  the  danger  is  greater, 
in  proportion  as,  from  the  propinquity  of  habitation 
and  intercourse  of  employment,  the  passions  and 
counsels  of  a  party  can  be  circulated  with  ease  and 
rapidity.  It  is  by  these  means,  and  in  such  situations, 
that  the  minds  of  men  are  so  affected  and  prepared, 
tiiat.  the  most  dreadful  uproars  often  arise  from  the 
slightest  provocations. — When  the  train  is  laid,  a  spark 
will  produce  the  explosion. 


SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT.  75 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   DUTY  OF  SUBMISSION  TO   CIVII,   GOVERN- 
MENT  EXPLAINED. 

THE  subject  of  this  chapter  is  sufficiently  distinguish- 
ed from  the  subject  of  the  last,  as  the  motives  which 
actually  produce  civil  obedience,  may  be,  and  often 
are,  very  different  from  the  reasons  which  make  that 
obedience  a  duty. 

In  order  to  prove  civil  obedience  to  be  a  moral  duty, 
and  an  obligation  upon  the  conscience,  it  hath  been 
usual  with  many  political  writers  (at  the  head  of  whom  * 
we  find  the  venerable  name  of  Locke)  to  state  a  com- 
pact between  the  citizen  and  the  state,  as  the  ground 
and  cause  of  the  relation  between  them;  which  com- 
pact, binding  the  parties  for  the  same  general  reason 
that  private  contracts  do,  resolves  the  duty  of  submis- 
sion to  civil  government  into  the  universal  obligation 
of  fidelity  in  the  performance  of  promises.  This  com- 
pact is  twofold: — 

First,  An  express  compact  by  the  primitive  founders 
of  the  state,  who  are  supposed  to  have  convened  for 
the  declared  purpose  of  settling  the  terms  of  their 
political  union,  and  a  future  constitution  of  govern- 
ment. The  whole  body  is  supposed,  in  the  first  place, 
to  have  unanimously  consented  to  be  bound  by  the 
resolutions  of  the  majority;  that  majority,  in  the  next 
place,  to  have  fixed  certain  fundamental  regulations; 
and  then  to  have  constituted,  either  in  one  person,  or 
in  an  assembly  {the  rule  of  succession,  or  appoint- 
ment, being  at  the  same  time  determined,)  a  standing 
legislature,  to  whom,  under  these  preestablished  re- 
strictions, the  government  of  the  state  was  thencefor- 
ward committed,  and  whose  laws  the  several  mem- 
bers of  the  convention  were,  by  their  first  undertaking, 
thus  personally  engaged  to  obey. — This  transaction  is 
sometimes  called  the  social  compact,  and  these  sup- 
posed original  regulations  compose  what  are  meant  by 
the  constitution,  the  fundament al  laics  of  the  consti- 
tution ;  and  form,  on  one  side,  the  inherent  indefeasi- 


76  SUBMISSION   TO  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

ble  prerogative  of  the  crown ;  and,  on  the  other,  the 
unalienable,  imprescriptible  birthright  of  the  subject. 

Secondly,  A  tacit  or  implied  compact,  by  all  suc- 
ceeding members  of  the  state,  who,  by  accepting  its 
protection,  ^consent  to  be  bound  by  itsJaws;  m  like 
manncTas,  whoever  voluntarily  enters  into  a  private 
society  is  understood,  without  any  other  or  more  ex- 
plicit stipulation,  to  promise  a  conformity  with  the 
rules,  and  obedience  to  the  government  of  that  society, 
as  the  known  conditions  upon  which  he  is  admitted  to 
a  participation  of  its  privileges. 

This  account  of  the  subject,  although  specious,  and 
patronized  by  names  the  most  respectable,  appears  to 
labour  under  the  following  objections;  that  it  is  found- 
ed upon  a  supposition  false  in  fact,  and  leading  to  dan- 
gerous conclusions. 

No  social  compact,  similar  to  what  is  here  de- 
scribed, was  ever  made  or  entered  into  in  reality;  no 
such  original  convention  of  the  people  was  ever  ac- 
tually holden,  or  in  any  country  could  be  holden,  an- 
tecedent to  the  existence  of  civil  government  in  that 
country.  It  is  to  suppose  it  possible  to  call  savages 
out  of  caves  and  deserts,  to  deliberate  and  vote  upon 
topics,  which  the  experience,  and  studies,  and  retine- 
ments  of  civil  life  alone  suggest.  Therefore  no  go- 
vernment in  the  universe  began  from  this  original. 
Some  imitation  of  a  social  compact  may  have  taken 
place  at  a  revolution.  The  present  age  has  been  wit- 
ness to  a  transaction  which  bears  the  nearest  resem- 
blance to  this  political  idea,  of  any  of  which  history 
has  preserved  the  account  or  memory:  I  refer  to  the 
establishment  of  the  United  States  of  North  America. 
We  saw  the  people  assembled  to  elect  deputies,  for  the 
avowed  purpose  of  framing  the  constitution  of  a  new 
empire.  We  saw  this  deputation  of  the  people  de- 
liberating and  resolving  upon  a  form  of  government, 
erecting  a  permanent  legislature,  distributing  the  func- 
tions of  sovereignty,  establishing  and  promulgating  a 
code  offundamental  ordinances,  which  were  to  be  con- 
sidered bv  succeeding  generations,  not  merely  as  laws 
and  acts  of  the  state,  but  as  the  very  terms  and  condi- 
tions of  the  confederation;  as  binding  not  only  upon 


SUBMISSION    TO  CIVIL    GOVERNMENT.  77 

the  subjects  and  magistrates  of  the  state,  but  as  limi- 
tations of  power,  which  were  to  control  and  regulate 
the  future  legislature.  Yet  even  here  much  was  pre- 
supposed. In  settling  the  constitution,  many  impor- 
tant parts  were  presumed  to  be  already  settled.  The 
qualifications  of  the  constituents  who  were  admitted  to 
vote  in  the  election  of  members  of  congress,  as  well  as 
the  mode  of  electing  the  representatives,  were  taken 
from  the  old  forms  of  government.  That  was  want-  < 
ing,  from  which  every  social  union  should  set  off,  and 
which  alone  makes  the  resolution  of  the  society  the 
act  of  the  individual, — the  unconstrained  consent  of 
all  to  be  bound  by  the  decision  of  the  majority;  and 
yet,  without  this  previous  consent,  the  revolt,  and  the 
regulations  which  followed  it,  were  compulsory  upon 
dissentients. 

But'  the  original  compact,  we  are  told,  is  not  pro- 
posed as  a  fact,  but  as  a  fiction,  which  furnishes  a 
commodious  explication  of  the  mutual  rights  and  du- 
ties of  sovereigns  and  subjects.  In  answer  to  this 
representation  of  the  matter,  we  observe,  that  the  ori- 
ginal compact,  if  it  be  not  a  fact,  is  nothing;  can  • 
confer  no  actual  authority  upon  laws  of  magistrates; 
nor  afford  any  foundation  to  rights  which  are  sup- 
posed to  be  real  and  existing.  But  the  truth  is,  that 
in  the  books,  and  in  the  apprehension  of  those  who 
deduce  our  civil  rights  and  obligations  a  pactis,  the 
original  convention  is  appealed  to  and  treated  of  as  a 
reality.  Whenever  the  disciples  of  this  system  speak 
of  the  constitution:  of  the  fundamental  articles  of  the 
constitution;  of  laws  being  constitutional  or  unconsti- 
tutional; or  inherent,  unalienable,  inextinguishable 
rights,  either  in  the  prince  or  in  the  people;  or  in- 
deed of  any  laws,  usages,  or  civil  rights,  as  transcend- 
ing the  authority  of  the  subsisting  legislature,  or  pos- 
sessing a  force  and  sanction  superior  to  what  belong 
to  the  modern  acts  and  edicts  of  the  legislature;  they 
secretly  refer  us  to  what  passed  at  the  original  con- 
vention. They  would  teach  us  to  believe,  that  certain 
rules  and  ordinances  were  established  by  the  people, 
at  the  same  time  that  they  settled  the  charter  of  go- 
vernment, and  the  powers  as  well  as  the  form  of  the 

-      VOL.  II.  7  * 


78  SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

future  legislature;  that  this  legislature  consequently, 
deriving  its  commission  and  existence  from  the  con- 
sent and  act  of  the  primitive  assembly  (of  which  in- 
deed it  is  only  the  standing  deputation,)  continues 
subject,  in  the  exercise  of  its  offices,  and  as  to  the 
extent  of  its  power,  to  the  rules,  reservations,  and  limi 
tations  which  the  same  assembly  then  made  and  pre- 
scribed to  it. 

J.  "  As  the  first  members  of  the  state  were  bound  by 
express  stipulation  to  obey  the  government  which  they 

.  had  erected,  so  the  succeeding  inhabitants  of  the 
same  country  are  understood  to  promise  allegiance  to 
the  constitution  and  government  they  find  established, 
by  accepting  its  protection,  claiming  its  privileges, 
and  acquiescing  in  its  laws;  more  especially  by  the 
purchase  or  inheritance  of  lands,  to  the  possession  of 
which  allegiance  to  the  state  is  annexed,  as  the  very 
service  and  condition  of  the  tenure."  Smoothly  as 
this  train  of  argument  proceeds,  little  of  it  will  endure 

""  examination.  The  native  subjects  of  modern  states 
are  not  conscious  of  any  stipulation  with  the  sove- 
reigns, of  ever  exercising  an  election  whether  they  will 
be  bound  or  not  by  the  acts  of  the  legislature,  of  any 
alternative  being  proposed  to  their  choice,  ol  a  pro- 
mise either  required  or  given;  nor  do  they  apprehend 
L  that  the  validity  or  authority  of  the  laws  depends  at 
.-ill  upon  their  recognition  or  consent.  In  all  stipula- 
tions, whether  they  be  expressed  or  implied,  private 
or  public,  formal  or  constructive,  the  parties  stipulat- 
ing must  both  possess  the  liberty  of  assent  and  re- 
fusal, and  also  be  conscious  of  this  liberty;  which 
cannot  with  truth  be  affirmed  of  the  subjects  of  civil 
government,  as  government  isnovv,  or  ever  was,  actu- 
ally administered.  This  is  a  defect,  which  no  argu- 
ments can  excuse  or  supply:  all  presumptions  of  con- 
sent, without  this  consciousness,  or  in  opposition  to  it, 
are  vain  and  erroneous.  Still  less  is  it  possible  to  re- 
concile with  any  idea  of  stipulation  the  practice,  in 
which  all  European  nations  agree,  of  founding  alle- 
giance upon  the  circumstance  of  nativity,  that  is,  of 
claiming  and  treating  as  subjects  all  those  who  are 
born  within  the  confines  of  their  dominions,  although 


SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT.  79 

removed  to  another  country  in  their  youth  or  infancy. 
In  this  instance,  certainly,  the  state  does  not  presume 
a  compact.  Also,  if  the  subject  be  bound  only  by  his 
own  consent,  and  if  the  voluntary  abiding  in  the  coun- 
try be  the  proof  and  intimation  of  that  consent,  by 
what  arguments  should  we  defend  the  right,  which 
sovereigns  universally  assume,  of  prohibiting,  when 
they  please,  the  departure  of  their  subjects  out  of  the 
realm  ? 

Again,  when  it  is  contended  that  the  taking  and 
holding  possession  of  land  amounts  to  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  sovereign,  and  a  virtual  promise  of  alle- 
giance to  his  laws,  it  is  necessary,  to  the  validity  of 
the  argument,  to  prove  that  the  inhabitants  who  first 
composed  and  constituted  the  state  collectively  pos- 
sessed a  right  to  the  soil  of  the  country; — a  right  to 
parcel  it  out  to  whom  they  pleased,  and  to  annex  to 
the  donation  what  conditions  they  thought  fit.  How 
came  they  by  this  right  ?  An  agreement  amongst 
themselves  would  not  confer  it:  that  could  only  ad- 
just what  already  belonged  to  them.  A  society  of 
men  vote  themselves  to  be  the  owners  of  a  region  of 
the  world: — does  that  vote,  unaccompanied  especially 
with  any  culture,  enclosure,  or  proper  act  of  occupa- 
tion, make  it  theirs  ?  does  it  entitle  them  to  exclude 
others  from  it,  or  to  dictate  the  conditions  upon  which  t 
it  shall  be  enjoyed  ?  Yet  this  original  collective  right  • 
and  ownership  is  the  foundation  for  all  the  reasoning 
by  which  the  duty  of  allegiance  is  inferred  from  the 
possession  of  land. 

The  theory  of  government  which  affirms  the  exist- 
ence and  the  obligation  of  a  social  compact,  would, 
after  all,  merit  little  discussion,  and,  however  ground- 
less and  unnecessary,  should  receive  no  opposition 
from  us,  did  it  not  appear  to  lead  to  conclusions  un- 
favourable to  the  improvement,  and  to  the  peace,  of 
hiynan  society. 

•/IsO  Upon  the  supposition  that  government  was 
first-  -erected  by,  and  that  it  derives  all  its  just  autho- 
rity from,  resolutions  entered  into  by  a  convention  of 
the  people,  it  is  capable  of  being  presumed,  that 
many  points  were  settled  by  that  convention,  anterior 


80  SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

to  the  establishment  of  the  subsisting  legislature,  and 
which  the  legislature,  consequently,  has  no  right  to 
alter  or  interfere  with.  These  points  are  called  the 
fundamentals  of  the  constitution;  and  as  it  is  impos- 
sible to  determine  how  many,  or  what  they  are,  the 
cuggesting  of  any  such  serves  extremely  to  embarrass 
the  deliberations  of  the  legislature,  and  affords  a  dan- 
gerous pretence  for  disputing  the  authority  of  the 
laws.  It  was  this  sort  of  reasoning  (so  far  as  reason- 
ing of  any  kind  was  employed  in  the  question)  that 
produced  in  this  nation  the  doubt  which  so  much 
agitated  the  minds  of  men  in  the  reign  of  the  second 
Charles,  whether  an  act  of  parliament  could  of  right 
aJtfcfkor  limit  the  succession  of  the  crown  ? 
|2dly)  If  it  be  by  virtue  of  a  compact  that  the  subject 
owes  obedience  to  civil  government,  it  will  follow  that 
he  ought  to  abide  by  the  form  of  government  which 
he  finds  established,  be  it  ever  so  absurd  or  inconve- 
nient. He  is  bound  by  his  bargain.  It  is  not  per- 
mitted to  any  man  to  retreat  from  his  engagement, 
merely  because  he  finds  the  performance  disadvan- 
tageous, or  because  he  has  an  opportunity  of  entering 
into  a  better.  This  law  of  contracts  is  universal:  and 
to  call  the  relation  between  the  sovereign  and  the 
subjects  a  contract,  yet  not  to  apply  to  it  the  rules,  or 
allow  of  the  effects  of  a  contract,  is  an  arbitrary  use 
of  names,  and  an  unsteadiness  in  reasoning,  which  can 

'teach  nothing.  Resistance  to  the  encroachments  of 
the  supreme  magistrate  may  be  justified  upon  this 
principle;  recourse  to  arms,  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 
ing about  an  amendment  of  the  constitution,  never 

vcan.  No  form  of  government  contains  a  provision  for 
rfs  own  dissolution;  and  few  governors  will  consent 
to  the  extinction,  or  even  to  any  abridgment,  of  theii 
own  power.  It  does  not  therefore  appear  how  des- 
potic governments  can  ever,  in  consistency  with  the 
obligation  of  the  subject,  be  changed  or  mitigated 
Despotism  is  the  constitution  of  many  states:  and 
whilst  a  despotic  prince  exacts  from  his  subjects  the 
most  rigorous  servitude,  according  to  this  account,  he 
is  only  holding  them  to  their  agreement.  A  people 
may  vindicate,  by  forc*»,  the  rights  which  the  consti* 


•UBMISSION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT.  81 

tution  has  left  them ;  but  every  attempt  to  narrow  the 
prerogative  of  the  crown,  by  new  limitations,  and  in 
opposition  to  the  will  of  the  reigning  prince,  what- 
ever opportunities  may  invite,  or  success  follow  it, 
must  be  condemned  as  an  infraction  of  the  compact 
between  the  sovereign  and  the  subject. 

[sdly^  Every  violation  of  the  compact  on  the  part^ofL 
the  governor  releases  the  subject  from  his  allegiance, 
and  dissolves  the  government.  I  do  not  perceive  liovir 
we  can  avoid  this  consequelice,.  if  we  found  the  duty 
of  allegiance  upon  compact,  and  confess  any  analogy 
between  the  social  compact  and  other  contracts.  In 
private  contracts,  the  violation  and  nonperformance 
of  the  conditions,  by  one  of  the  parties,  vacates  the 
obligation  of  the  other.  Now  the  terms  and  articles 
of  the  social  compact  being  no  where  extant  or  ex- 
pressed; the  rights  and  offices  of  the  administrator  of 
an  empire  being  so  many  and  various;  the  imaginary 
and  controverted  line  of  his  prerogative  being  so  lia- 
ble to  be  overstepped  in  one  part  or  other  of  it;  the 
position,  that  every  such  transgression  amounts  to  a 
forfeiture  of  the  government,  and  consequently  autho- 
rizes the  people  to  withdraw  their  obedience,  and  pro 
vide  for  themselves  by  a  new  settlement,  would  en- 
danger the  stability  of  every  political  fabric  in  the 
world,  and  has  in  fact  always  supplied  the  disaffected 
with  a  topic  of  seditious  declamation.  If  occasions 
have  arisen,  in  which  this  plea  has  been  resorted  to 
with  justice  and  success,  they  have  been  occasions  in 
which  a  revolution  was  defensible  upon  other  and 
plainer  principles.  The  plea  itself  is  at  all  times  cap- 
tious and  unsafe. 


Wherefore,  rejecting  the  intervention  of  a  compact, 
as  unfounded  in  its  principle,  and  dangerous  in  the 
application,  we  assign  for  the  only  ground  of  the  sub- 
ject's obligation,  THE  WILL,  OF  GOD  AS  COLLECTED  f\ 

FROM    EXPEDIENCY. 

The  steps  by  which  the  argument  proceeds  are  few 
and  direct. — "  It  is  the  will  of  God  that  the  happiness 
of  human  life  be  promoted:" — this  is  the  first  step, 


82  SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

and  the  foundation  not  only  of  this,  but  of  every  moral 
conclusion.  "  Civil  society  conduces  to  that  end :" — . 
this  is  the  second  proposition.  u  Civil  societies  can- 
not be  upholden,  unless,  in  each,  the  interest  of  the 
whole  society  be  binding  upon  every  part  and  mem- 
Jje.r  of  it:" — this  is  the  third  step,  and  conducts  us  to 
the  conclusion,  namely,  "  that  so  long  as  the  interest 
of  the  whole  society  requires  it,  that  is,  so  long  as  the 
established  government  cannot  be  resisted  or  changed 
without  public  inconveniency,  it  is  the  will  of  God 
(which  will  universally  determines  our  duty)  that  the 

I  established  government  be  obeyed," — and  no  longer. 
This  principle  being  admitted,  the  justice  of  every 
particular  case  of  resistance  is  reduced  to  a  computa- 
tion of  the  quantity  of  the  danger  and  grievance  on 
the  one  side,  and  of  the  probability  and  expense  of 
redressing  it  on  the  other. 

But  who  shall  judge  this  ?  We  answer,  "  Every 
man  for  himself."  In  contentions  between  the  sove- 
reign and  the  subject,  the  parties  acknowledge  no 
common  arbitrator;  and  it  would  be  absurd  to  refer 
the  decision  to  those  whose  conduct  has  provoked  the 
question,  and  whose  own  interest,  authority,  and  fate 
"are  immediately  concerned  in  it.  The  danger  of  error 
and  abuse  is  no  objection  to  the  rule  of  expediency, 
because  every  other  rule  is  liable  to  the  same  or  great- 
er; and  every  rule  that  can  be  propounded  upon  the 
subject  (like  all  rules  indeed  which  appeal  to,  or  bind, 
the  conscience)  must  in  the  application  depend  upon 
private  judgment.  It  may  be  observed,  however,  that 
it  ought  equally  to  be  accounted  the  exercise  of  a 
man's  own  private  judgment,  whether  he  be  determin- 
ed by  reasonings  and  conclusions  of  his  own,  or  sub- 
mit to  be  directed  by  the  advice  of  others,  provided 
he  be  free  to  choose  his  guide. 

We  proceed  to  point  out  some  easy  but  important 
inferences,  which  result  from  the  substitution  of  public 
expediency  into  the  place  of  all  implied  compacts,  pro- 
mises, or  conventions  whatsoever. 

1 .  It  may  be  as  much  a  duty,  at  one  time,  to  resist 
government,  as  it  is  at  another  to  obey  it;  to  wit, 


SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT.  83 

whenever  more  advantage  will,  in  our  opinion,  accrue 
to /the  community  from  resistance,  than  mischief. 

fey  The  lawfulness  of  resistance,  or  the  lawfulness 
of  a  revolt,  does  not  depend  alone  upon  the  grievance 
which  is  sustained  or  feared,  but  also  upon  the  pro- 
bable expense  and  event  of  the  contest.  They  who 
concerted  the  Revolution  in  England  were  justifiable 
in  their  counsels,  because,  from  the  apparent  disposi- 
tion of  the  nation,  and  the  strength  and  character  of 
the  parties  engaged,  the  measure  was  likely  to  bo 
brought  about  with  little  mischief  or  bloodshed;  where- 
as it  might  have  been  a  question  with  many  friends 
of  their  country,  whether  the  injuries  then  endured 
and  threatened  would  have  authorized  the  renewal  of 
a  doubtful  civil  war. 

3.  Irregularity  in  the  first  foundation  of  a  state,  or. 
subsequent  violence,  fraud,  or  injustice  in  getting  pos- 
session of  the  supreme  power,  are  not  sufficient  rea"- 
sons    for  resistance,    after   the   government   is  once' 
peaceably  settled.     No  subject  of  the  British  empire 
conceives  himself  engaged  to  vindicate  the  justice  of 
the  Norman   claim  or  conquest,  or  apprehends  that 
his  duty  in  any  manner  depends  upon  that  contro- 
versy.    So,   likewise,   if  the  house  of  Lancaster,  or 
even  the  posterity  of  Cromwell,  had  been  at  this  day 
seated  upon  the  throne   of  England,  we  should  have 
been  as  little  concerned  to  inquire  how  the  founder  of 
the  family  came  there.    No  civil  contests  are  so  futile, 
although   none   have  been  so  furious  and  sanguinary 
as  those  which  are  excited  by  a  disputed  succession. 

4.  Not   every  invasion  of  the   subject's   rights  or 
liberty,  or  of  the   constitution;  not  every  breach  of 
promise,  or  of  oath;  not  every  stretch  of  prerogative, 
abuse  of  power,  or  neglect  of  duty  by  the  chief  ma- 
gistrate, or  by  the  whole  or  any  branch  of  the  legisla- 
tive body,  justifies  resistance,  unless  these  crimes  draw 
after  them   public   consequences  of  sufficient  magm-' 
tude  to  outweigh  the  evils  of  civil  disturbance.     Nev- 
ertheless, every  violation  of  the  constitution   oughttcf 
be  watched  with  jealousy,  and  resented  as  such,  be- 
yond  what  the  quantity  of  estimable  damage  \voul3 
require  or  warrant;  because   a   known   and   settled 


84  SUBMISSION   TO  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

jusage  of  governing  affords  the  only  security  against 
the  enormities  of  uncontrolled  dominion,  and  because 
fliis  security  is  weakened  by  every  encroachment  which 
is  made  without  opposition,  or  opposed  without  effect. 
^_  5.  No  usage,  law,  or  authority  whatever  is  so  bind- 
ing that  it  need  or  ought  to  be  continued,  when  it 
may  be  changed  with  advantage  to  the  community. 
The  family  of  the  prince,  the  order  of  succession,  the 
prerogative  of  the  crown,  the  form  and  parts  of  the 
legislature,  together  with  the  respective  powers,  office, 
duration,  and  mutual  dependency  of  the  several  parts, 
are  all  only  so  many  laws,  mutable  like  other  laws 
whenever  expediency  requires,  either  by  the  ordinary 
act  of  the  legislature,  or,  if  the  occasion  deserve  it,  by 
the  interposition  of  the  people.  These  points  are  wont 
to  be  approached  with  a  kind  of  awe;  they  are  repre- 
sented to  the  mind  as  principles  of  the  constitution 
settled  by  our  ancestors,  and,  being  settled,  to  be  no 
more  committed  to  innovation  or  debate;  as  founda- 
tions never  to  be  stirred ;  as  the  terms  and  conditions 
of  the  ao_cial  compact,  to  which  every  citizen  of  the 
state  has  engaged  his  fidelity,  by  virtue  of  a  promise 
which  he  cannot  now  recall.  Such  reasons  have  no 
place  in  our  system:  to  us,  if  there  be  any  good  rea- 
son for  treating  these  with  more  deference  and  respect 
than  other  laws,  it  is  either  the  advantage  of  the  pre- 
sent constitution  of  government  (which  reason  must 
be  of  different  force  in  different  countries,)  or  because 
in  all  countries  it  is  of  importance  that  the  form  and 
usage  of  governing  be  acknowledged  and  understood, 
as  well  by  the  governors  as  by  the  governed;  and  be- 

^ cause,  the  seldomer  it  is  changed,  the  more   perfectly 

jtTnll  be  known  by  both  sides. 

6.  As  al]_civil  obligation  is  resolved  into  exjpedi- 
,  what,  It  may  be  asked,  is  the  difference  between 
the  obligation  of  an  Englishman  and  a  Frenchman? 
or  why,  sinc9  the  obligation  of  both  appears  to  be 
founded  in  the  same  reason,  is  a  Frenchman  bound  in 
conscience  to  bear  any  thing  from  his  king,  which  an 
Englishman  would  not  be  bound  to  bear  ?  Their  con- 
ditions may  differ,  but  their  rights,  according  to  this 
account,  should  seem  to  be  equal;  and  yet  we  are 


SUBMISSION  TO   CIVIL.   GOVERNMENT.  85 

accustomed  to  speak  of  the  rights  as  well  as  of  the 
happiness  of  a  free  people,  compared  with  what  be- 
long to  the  subjects  of  absolute  monarchies:  how,  you 
will  say,  can  this  comparison  be  explained,  unless  we 
refer  to  a  difference  in  the  compacts  by  which  they 
are  respectively  bound  ? — This  is  a  fair  question,  and 
the  answer  to  it  will  afford  a  further  illustration  of 
our  principles.  We  admit,  then,  that  there  are  many 
things  which  a  Frenchman  is  bound  in  conscience,  as 
well  as  by  coercion,  to  endure  at  the  hands  of  his 
prince,  to  which  an  Englishman  would  not  be  obliged 
to  submit:  but  we  assert,  that  it  is  for  these  two  rea- 
sons alone;  first,  because  the  same  act  of  the  prince 
is  not  the  same  grievance,  where  it  is  agreeable  to  the 
constitution,  as  where  it  infringes  it;  secondly,  be- 
ciuse  redress  in  the  two  cases  is  not  equally  attain- 
able. Resistance  cannot  be  attempted  with  equal 
hopes  of  success,  or  with  the  same  prospect  of  receiv- 
ing support  from  others,  where  the  people  are  recon- 
ciled  to  their  sufferings,  as  where  they  are  alarmedlry 
innovation.  In  this  way,  and  no  otherwise,  the  sub--_ 
jects  of  different  states  possess  different  civil  rights; 
the  duty  of  obedience  is  defined  by  different  bounda- 
ries; and  the  point  of  justifiable  resistance  placed  at 
different  parts  of  the  scale  of  suffering;  ail  which  is 
sufficiently  intelligible  without  a  social  compact. 

7.  "  The  interest  of  the  whole  society  is  binding 
upon  every  part  of  it.'*  No  rule,  short  of  this,  vvill 
provide  for  the  stability  of  civil  government,  or  for 
the  peace  and  safety  of  social  life.  Wherefore,  as  in- 
dividual members  of  the  state  are  not  permitted  to 
pursue  their  private  emolument  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
community,  so  is  it  equally  a  consequence  of  this  rule, 
that  no  particular  colony,  province,  town,  or  district, 
can  justly  concert  measures  for  their  separate  interest, 
which  shall  appear  at  the  same  time  to  diminish  the 
sum  of  public  prosperity.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is 
necessary  to  the  justice  of  a  measure,  that  it  proht 
each  and  every  part  of  the  community  (for,,  as  the 
happiness  of  the  whole  may  be  increased,  whilst  that^, 
of  some  parts  is  diminished,  it  is  possible  that  the  con- 
duct of  one  part  of  an  empire  may  be  detrimental*"^ 

VOL.  ii.  8 


\ 

86  SUBMISSION  TO  CIVIL   GOVERNMENT. 

! 

some  other  part,  and  yet  just,  provided  one  part  gain 
more  in  happiness  than  the  other  part  loses,  so  that 
the  common  weal  be  augmented  by  the  change;)  but 
what  I  affirm  is,  that  those  counsels  can  never  be  re- 
conjpiled  with  the  obligations  resulting  from  civil 
union,  which  cause  the  whole  happiness  of  society  to 
be  impaired  for  the  conveniency  of  apart.  This  con- 
clusion is  applicable  to  the  question  of  right  between 
Great  Britain  and  her  revolted  colonies.  Had  I  been 
an  American,  I  should  not  have  thought  it  enough  to 
have  had  it  even  demonstrated,  that  a  separation  from 
the  parent  state  would  produce  effects  beneficial  to 
America;  my  relation  to  that  state  imposed  upon  me  a 
further  inquiry,  namely,  whether  the  whole  happiness 
of  the  empire  was  likely  to  be  promoted  by  such  a  mea- 
sure ?  not  indeed  the  happiness  of  every  part;  that 
was  not  necessary,  nor  to  be  expected; — but  whether 
what  Great  Britain  would  lose  by  the  separation  was 
likely  to  be  compensated  to  the  joint  stock  of  happi- 
ness, by  the  advantages  which  America  would  receive 
from  it  ?  The  contested  claims  of  sovereign  states  and 
their  remote  dependencies  may  be  submitted  to  the 
adjudication  of  this  rule  with  mutual  safety.  A  pub- 
lic  advantage  is  measured  by  the  advantage  which 
"each  individual  receives,  and  by  the  number  of  those 
"wtio  receive  it.  A  public  evil  is  compounded  of  the 
same  proportions.  Whilst,  therefore,  a  colony  is  small, 
or  a  province  thinly  inhabited,  if  a  competition  of  in- 
terests arise  between  the  original  country  and  their 
acquired  dominions,  the  former  ought  to  be  preferred; 
because  it  is  fit  that,  if  one  must' necessarily  be  sacri- 
ficed, the  less  give  place  to  the  greater:  but  when,  by 
an  increase  cf  population,  the  interest  of  the  provinces 
begins  to  bear  a  considerable  portion  to  the  entire 
interests  of  the  community,  it  is  possible  that  they  may 
suffer  so  much  by  their  subjection,  that  not  only  theirs, 
but  the  whole  happiness  of  the  empire  may  be  ob- 
structed by  their  union.  The  rule  and  principle  of 
the  calculation  being  still  the  same,  the  result  is  dif- 
ferent: and  this  difference  begets  a  new  situation, 
which  entities  the  subordinate  parts  of  the  state  to 
more  equal  terms  of  confederation,  and,  if  these  be 
refused,  to  independency. 


DUTY  OF  CIVIL  OBEDIENCE.  87 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OF  THE    DUTY    OF    CIVIL    OBEDIENCE,  AS    STATED 
IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES. 

WE  affirm  that,  as  to  the  extent  of  our  civil  rights 
and  obligations,  Christianity  hath  left  us  where  she 
foun(J  us;  that  she  hath  neither  altered  nor  ascer- 
tained it;  that  the  New  Testament  contains  not  one 
passage,  which,  fairly  interpreted,  affords  either  argu- 
ment or  objection  applicable  to  any  conclusions  upon 
the  subject  that  are  deduced  from  the  law  and  religion 
of  nature. 

The  only  passages  which  have  been  seriously  alleged 

in  the  controversy,  or  which  it  is  necessary  for  us  to 

'  state   and  examine,   are   the   two  following;  the  one 

extracted  from  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  the 

other  from  the  First  General  Epistle  of  St.  Peter: — . 

"  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  powers: 
for  there  is  no  power  but  of  God;  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever,  therefore,  resist- 
eth  the  power  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God:  and 
they  that  resist  shall  receive  to  themselves  damnation. 
For  rulers  are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the 
evil.  Wilt  thou  then  not  be  afraid  of  the  power  ? 
Do  that  which  is  good,  and  thou  shalt  have  praise  of 
the  same:  for  he  is  the  minister  of  God  to  thee  for 

food.  But  if  thou  do  that  which  is  evil,  be  afraid;  for 
e  beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain:  for  he  is  the  minister 
of  God^a  revenger  to  execute  wrath  upon  him  that 
doeth  evil.  Wherefore  ye  must  needs  be  subject,  not 
only  for  wrath,  but  also  for  conscience'  sake.  For, 
for  this  cause  pay  ye  tribute  also:  for  they  are  God's 
ministers,  attending  continually  upon  this  very  thing. 
Render  therefore  to  all  their  dues;  tribute  to  whom 
tribute  is  due,  custom  to  whom  custom,  fear  to  whom 
fear,  honour  to  whom  honour."  Rom.  xiii.  1 — 7. 

"  Submit  yourselves  to  every  ordinance  of  man,  for 
the  Lord's  sake;  whether  it  be  to  the  King,  as  su- 
preme^;  or  unto  governors,  as  unto  them  that  are  sent 
by  him  for  the  punishment  of  evildoers,  and  for  the 


88  DUTY   OF  CIVIL,   OBEDIENCE. 

praise  of  them  that  do  well.  For  so  is  the  will  of 
God,  that  with  well  doing  ye  may  put  to  silence  the 
ignorance  of  foolish  men:  as  free,  and  not  using  youi 
liberty  for  a  cloak  of  maliciousness,  but  as  the  ser- 
vants of  God."  1  Pet.  ii.  13 — 18. 

To  comprehend  the  proper  import  of  these  instruc- 
-r   tions,  let  the  reader  reflect,  that  upon  the  subject  of 
^  civil    obedience    there   are  two  questions:    the    first, 
whether  to  obey  government   be   a  moral  duty  and 
obligation   upon   the   conscience  at  all  ?    the  second, 
^how  far,  and  to  what  cases,  that  obedience  ought  to 
2j-  extend  ?  that   these  two  questions   are  so  distinguish- 
able in  the  imagination,  that  it  is  possible  to  treat  of 
£]  the  one,  without  any  thought  of  the  other;  and  lastly, 
that  if  expressions  which  relate  to  one  of  these  ques- 
tions  be   transferred   and   applied  to  the  other,  it  is 
with  great  danger   of  giving  them  a  signification  very 
different  from  the  author's  meaning.     This  distinction 
is  not  only  possible,  but  natural.     If  I  met  with  a  per- 
son who   appeared  to  entertain  doubts,  whether  civil 
obedience  were  a  moral  duty  which  ought  to  be  volun- 
tarily discharged,  or  whether  it  were  not  a  mere  sub- 
mission to  force,  like  that  which  we  yield  to  a  robber 
who  holds  a  pistol  to  our  breast,  I  should  represent  to 
him  the  use   and  offices  of  civil  government,  the  end 
and  the  necessity  of  civil  subjection;  or  if  I  preferred 
a  different  theory,  I  should   explain  to  him  the  social 
compact,  urge  him  with  the  obligation  and  the  equity 
of  his  implied  promise  and  tacit  consent  to  be  governed 
by  the  laws  of  the  state  from  which  he  received  pro- 
tection: or  I  should  argue,  perhaps   that  Nature   her- 
self dictated  the  law  of  subordination,  when  she  plant- 
ed within   us  an  inclination  to  associate  with  our  spe- 
cies, and  framed  us  with  capacities  so  various  and  un- 
equal.    From   whatever   principle   I  set  out,  I  should 
labour  to  infer  from  it  this  conclusion,  "  That  obedi- 
ence to  the  state   is  to  be  numbered  amongst  the  re- 
lative  duties  of  human  life,  for  the  transgression  of 
which   we  shall  be  accountable  at  the  tribunal  of  Di- 
vine Justice,  whether  the  magistrate  be  able  to  punish 
us  for  it  or  not;"  and  being  arrived  at  this  conclusion, 
I  should  stop,  having  delivered  the  conclusion  itself, 


DUTY  OF  CIVIL,  OBEDIENCE.  89 

and  throughout  the  whole  argument  expressed  the 
obedience,  which  I  inculcated,  in  the  most  general  and 
unqualified  terms;  all  reservations  and  restrictions 
being  superfluous,  and  foreign  to  the  doubts  I  was 
employed  to  remove. 

If,  in  a  short  time  afterwards,  I  should  be  accosted 
by  the  same  person,  with  complaints  of  public  griev- 
ances, of  exorbitant  taxes,  of  acts  of  cruelty  and  op- 
pression, of  tyrannical  encroachments  upon  the  ancient 
or  stipulated  rights  of  the  people,  and  should  be  con- 
sulted whether  it  were  lawful  to  revolt,  or  justifiable  to 
join  in  an  attempt  to  shake  off  the  yoke  by  open  resist- 
ance; I  should  certainly  consider  myself  as  having  a 
case  and  question  before  me  very  different  from  the 
former.  I  should  now  define  and  discriminate.  I 
should  reply,  that  if  public  expediency  be  the  foun 
dation,  it  is  also  the  measure,  of  civil  obedience;  that; 
the  obligation  of  subjects  and  sovereigns  is  reciprocal; 
that  the  duty  of  allegiance,  whether  it  be  founded  in 
utility  or  compact,  is  neither  unlimited  nor  uncondition- 
al; that  peace  may  oe  purchased  too  dearly;  that  pa- 
tience becomes  culpable  pusillanimity,  when  it  serves 
only  to  encourage  our  rulers  to  increase  the  weight  of 
our  burden,  or  to  bind  it  the  faster;  that  the  submis- 
sion which  surrenders  the  liberty  of  a  nation,  and  en- 
tails slavery  upon  future  generations,  is  enjoined  by 
no  law  of  rational  morality:  finally,  I  should  instruct 
the  inquirer  to  compare  the  peril  and  expense  of  his 
enterprise  with  the  effects  it  was  expected  to  produce, 
and  to  make  choice  of  the  alternative  by  which,  not 
his  own  present  relief  or  profit,  but  the  whole  and 
permanent  interest  of  the  state  was  likely  to  be  best 
promoted.  If  any  one  who  had  been  present  at  both 
these  conversations,  should  upbraid  me  with  change 
and  inconsistency  of  opinion,  should  retort  upon  me 
the  passive  doctrine  which  I  before  taught,  the  large 
and  absolute  terms  in  which  I  then  delivered  lessons 
of  obedience  and  submission,  I  should  account  myself 
unfairly  dealt  with.  I  should  reply,  that  the  only  dif- 
ference which  the  language  of  the  two  conversations 
presented  was,  that  I  added  now  many  exceptions  and 
limitations,  which  were  omitted  or  unthought  of  then; 

VOL.  11.  S  * 


90  DUTY   OF  C^VIL  OBEDIENCE. 

that  this  difference  arose  naturally  from  the  two  occa- 
sions, such  exceptions  being  as  necessary  to  the  sub- 
ject of  our  present  conference,  as  they  would  have 
been  superfluous  and  unseasonable  in  the  former. 

Now  the  difference  in  these  two  conversations  is 
precisely  the  distinction  to  be  taken  in  interpreting 
those  passages  of  Scripture,  concerning  which  we  are 
debating.  They  inculcate  the  duty,  they  do  not  de- 
scribe the  extent  of  it.  They  enforce  the  obligation 
by  the  proper  sanctions  of  Christianity,  without  in- 
tending either  to  enlarge  or  contract,  without  consi- 
dering, indeed,  the  limits  by  which  it  is  bounded. 
This  is  also  the  method  in  which  the  same  apostles 
enjoin  the  duty  of  servants  to  their  masters,  of  children 
to  their  parents,  of  wives  to  their  husbands:  "  Ser- 
vants, be  subject  to  your  masters." — "  Children,  obey 
your  parents  in  all  things." — "Wives,  submit  your- 
selves unto  your  own  husbands."  The  same  concise 
and  absolute  form  of  expression  occurs  in  all  these 
precepts;  the  same  silence  as  to  many  exceptions  or 
distinctions:  yet  no  one  doubts  that  the  commands  of 
masters,  parents,  and  husbands  are  often  so  immo- 
derate, unjust,  and  inconsistent  with  other  obligations, 
that  they  both  may  and  ought  to  be  resisted.  In  let- 
ters or  dissertations  written  professedly  upon  separate 
articles  of  morality,  we  might  with  more  reason  have 
looked  for  a  precise  delineation  of  our  duty,  and  some 
degree  of  modern  accuracy  in  the  rules  which  were 
laid  down  for  our  direction;  but  in  those  short  collec- 
tions of  practical  maxims  which  compose  the  conclu- 
sion, or  some  small  portion  of  a  doctrinal  or  perhaps 
controversial  epistle,  we  cannot  be  surprised  to  find 
the  author  more  solicitous  to  impress  the  duty  than 
curious  to  enumerate  exceptions. 

The  consideration  of  this  distinction  is  alone  suffi- 
cient to  vindicate  these  passages  of  Scripture  from  any 
explanation  which  may  be  put  upon  them,  in  favour 
of  an  unlimited  passive  obedience.  But  if  we  be 
permitted  to  assume  a  supposition  which  many  com- 
mentators proceed  upon  as  a  certainty,  that  the  first 
Christians  privately  cherished  an  opinion,  that  their 
conversion  to  Christianity  entitled  them  tonewimmu- 


DUTY  OF  CIVIL    OBEDIENCE.  91 

nities,  to  an  exemption,  as  of  right  (however  they 
might  give  way  to  necessity,)  from  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  sovereign;  we  are  furnished  with  a  still  more  apt 
and  satisfactory  interpretation  of  the  apostles'  words. 
The  two  passages  apply  with  great  propriety  to  the 
refutation  of  this  error:  they  teach  the  Christian  con 
vert  to  obey  the  magistrate  "  for  the  Lord's  sake; — 
"  not  only  for  wrath,  but  for  conscience'  sake;" — 
"that  there  is  no  power  but  of  God;" — "that  the 
powers  that  be,"  even  the  present  rulers  of  the  Roman 
empire,  though  heathens  and  usurpers,  seeing  they 
are  in  possession  of  the  actual  and  necessary  autho- 
rity of  civil  government,  "  are  ordained  of  God;'1  and, 
consequently,  entitled  to  receive  obedience  from  those 
who  profess  themselves  the  peculiar  servants  of  God, 
in  a  greater  (certainly  not  in  a  less)  degree  than  from 
any  others.  They  briefly  describe  the  office  of"  civil 
governors,  the  punishment  of  evildoers,  and  the  praise 
of  them  that  do  well:'1  from' which  description  of  the 
use  of  government,  they  justly  infer  the  duty  of  sub- 
jection; which  duty,  being  as  extensive  as  the  reason 
upon  which  it  is  founded,  belongs  to  Christians,  no 
less  than  to  the  heathen  members  of  the  community. 
If  it  be  admitted,  that  the  two  apostles  wrote  with  a 
view  to  this  particular  question,  it  will  be  confessed, 
that  their  words  cannot  be  transferred  to  a  question 
totally  different  from  this,  with  any  certainty  of  carry- 
ing along  with  us  their  authority  an4  intention.  There 
exists  no  resemblance  between  the  case  of  a  primitive 
convert,  who  disputed  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman 
government  over  a  disciple  of  Christianity,  and  his 
who,  acknowledging  the  general  authority  of  the  state 
over  all  its  subjects,  doubts  whether  that  authority  be 
not,  in  some  important  branch  of  it,  so  ill  constituted, 
or  abused,  as  to  warrant  the  endeavours  of  the  people 
to  bring  about  a  reformation  by  force.  Nor  can  we 
judge  what  reply  the  apostles  would  have  made  to 
this  second  question,  if  it  had  been  proposed  to  them, 
from  any  thing  they  have  delivered  upon  the  first ;  any 
more  than,  in  the  two  consultations  above  described, 
it  could  be  known  beforehand  what  I  would  say  in  the 
latter,  from  the  answer  which  I  gave  to  the  former. 


92  DUTY   OF   CIVIL   OBEDIENCE. 

The  only  defect  in  this  account  is,  that  neither  the 
Scriptures,  nor  any  subsequent  history  of  the  early 
ages  of  the  church,  furnish  any  direct  attestation  of 
the  existence  of  such  disaffected  sentiments  amongst 
the  primitive  converts.  They  supply  indeed  some 
circumstances  which  render  probable  the  opinion,  that 
extravagant  notions  of  the  political  rights  of  the 
Christian  state  were  at  that  time  entertained  by  many 
prosielytes  to  the  religion.  From  the  question  pro- 
posed to  Christ,  "  Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto 
Caesar  ?"  it  may  be  presumed  that  doubts  had  be^n 
started  in  the  Jewish  schools  concerning  the  obligation, 
or  even  the  lawfulness,  of  submission  to  the  Roman 
yoke.  The  accounts  delivered  by  Josephus,  of  various 
insurrections  of  the  Jews  of  that  and  the  following 
age,  excited  by  this  principle,  or  upon  this  pretence, 
confirm  the  presumption.  Now,  as  the  Christians  were 
at  first  chiefly  taken  from  the  Jews,  confounded  with 
them  by  the  rest  of  the  world,  and,  from  the  affinity 
of  the  two  religions,  apt  to  intermix  the  doctrines  of 
both,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  that  a  tenet,  so  flat- 
tering to  the  self-importance  of  those  who  embraced 
it,  should  have  been  communicated  to  the  new  institu- 
tion. Again,  the  teachers  of  Christianity,  amongst 
the  privileges  which  their  religion  conferred  upon  its 
professors,  were  wont  to  extol  the  "  liberty  into  which 
they  were  called" — "  in  which  Christ  had  made  them 
free.-'  This  liberty,  which  was  intended  of  a  deli- 
verance from  the  \arious  servitude  in  which  they  had 
heretofore  lived,  to  the  domination  of  sinful  passions, 
to  the  superstition  of  the  Gentile  jdolatry,  or  the  en- 
cumbered ritual  of  the  Jewish  dispensation,  might  by 
some  be  interpreted  to  signify  an  emancipation  from 
all  restraint  which  was  imposed  by  an  authority  merely 
human.  At  least,  they  might  be  represented  by  their 
enemies  as  maintaining  notions  of  this  dangerous  ten- 
dency. To  some  exror  or  calumny  of  this  kind,  the 
words  of  St.  Peter  seem  to  allude: — "for  so  is  the 
will  of  God,  that  with  well  doingye  may  put  to  silence 
the  ignorance  of  foolish  men:  as  free,  and  not  using 
your  liberty  for  a  cloak  of  maliciousness,  (i.  e.  sedition,) 
but  as  the  servants  of  God."  After  all,  if  any  one 


DUTY  OF  CIVIL,  OBEDIENCE.  93 

think  this  conjecture  too  feebly  supported  by  testi- 
mony, to  be  relied  upon  in  the  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture, he  will  then  revert  to  the  considerations  alleged 
in  the  preceding  part  of  this  chapter. 

After  so  copious  an  account  of  what  we  apprehend 
to  be  the  general  design  and  doctrine  of  these  much 
agitated  passages,  little  need  be  added  in  explanation 
of  particular  clauses.  St.  Paul  has  said,  "  Whosoever 
resisteth  the  power  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God." 
This  phrase,  "  the  ordinance  of  God,"  is  by  many  so 
interpreted  as  to  authorize  the  most  exalted  and  super- 
stitious ideas  of  the  regal  character.  But,  surely, 
such  interpreters  have  sacrificed  truth  to  adulation. 
For,  in  the  first  place,  the  expression,  as  used  by  St. 
Paul,  is  just  as  applicable  to  one  kind  of  government, 
and  to  one  kind  of  succession,  as  to  another; — to  the 
elective  magistrates  of  a  pure  republic,  as  to  an  abso- 
lute hereditary  monarch.  In  the  next  place,  it  is  not 
affirmed  of  the  supreme  magistrate  exclusively,  that 
he  is  the  ordinance  of  God;  the  title,  whatever  it 
imports,  belongs  to  every  inferior  officer  of  the  state 
as  much  as  to  the  highest.  The  divine  right  of  kings 
is,  like  the  divine  right  of  other  magistrates — the  law 
of  the  land,  or  even  actual  and  quiet  possession  of 
their  office;  a  right  ratified,  we  humbly  presume,  by 
the  divine  approbation,  so  long  as  obedience  to  their 
authority  appears  to  be  necessary  or  conducive  to  the 
common  welfare.  Princes  are  ordained  of  God  by 
virtue  only  of  that  general  decree  by  which  he  assents, 
and  adds  the  sanction  of  his  will,  to  every  law  of 
society  which  promotes  his  own  purpose — the  com- 
munication of  human  happiness;  according  to  which 
idea  of  their  origin  and  constitution  (and  without  any 
repugnancy  to  the  words  of  St.  Paul,)  they  are  by 
St.  Peter  denominated  the  ordinance  of  man. 


94  CIVIL.  LIBERTY. 


CHAPTER  V. 

OF    CIVIL,    LIBERTY. 

CIVIL  LIBERTY  is  the  not  being  restrained  by  any 

law  but  what  conduces  in  a  greater  degree  to  the 

public  welfare. 

To  do  what  we  will  is  natural  liberty:  to  do  what 
we  will,  consistently  with  the  interest  of  the  commu- 
nity to  which  we  belong,  is  civil  liberty;  that  is  to 
say,  the  only  liberty  to  be  desired  in  a  state  of  civil 
society. 

I  should  wish,  no  doubt,  to  be  allowed  to  act  in 
every  instance  as  I  pleased;  but  I  reflect,  that  the 
rest  also  of  mankind  would  then  do  the  same;  in 
which  state  of  universal  independence  and  self-direc- 
tion, I  should  meet  with  so  many  checks  and  obsta- 
cles to  my  owrn  will,  from  the  interference  and  oppo- 
sition of  other  men's,  that  not  only  my  happiness,  but 
my  liberty,  would  be  less,  than  whilst  the  whole  com- 
munity were  subject  to  the  dominion  of  equal  laws. 

The  boasted  liberty  of  a  state  of  nature  exists  only 
in  a  state  of  solitude.  In  every  kind  and  degree  of 
union  and  intercourse  with  his  species,  it  is  possible 
that  the  liberty  of  the  individual  may  be  augmented 
by  the  very  laws  which  restrain  it;  because  he  may 
gain  more  from  the  limitation  of  other  men's  freedom 
than  he  suffers  by  the  diminution  of  his  own.  Natural 
liberty  is  the  right  of  common  upon  a  waste;  civil 
liberty  is  the  safe,  exclusive,  unmolested  enjoyment  of 
a  cultivated  enclosure. 

The  definition  of  civil  liberty  above  laid  down  im- 
ports, that  the  laws  of  a  free  people  impose  no  re- 
straints upon  the  private  will  of  the  subject,  which  do 
not  conduce  in  a  greater  degree  to  the  public  happi- 
ness; by  which  it  is  intimated,  1st,  That  restraint 
itself  is  an  evil;  2dly,  That  this  evil  ought  to  be  over- 
balanced by  some  public  advantage;  Sdly,  That  the 
proof  of  this  advantage  lies  upon  the  legislature, 
4thly,  That  a  law  being  found  to  produce  no  sensible 
good  effects  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  repealing  it,  as 
adverse  and  injurious  to  the  rights  of  a  free  citizen, 


CIVIL,  LIBERTY.  95 

without  demanding  specific  evidence  of  its  bad  effects. 
This  maxim  might  be  remembered  with  advantage  in 
a  revision  of  many  laws  of  this  country;  especially  of 
the  game  laws;  of  the  poor  laws,  so  far  as  they  lay  re- 
strictions upon  the  poor  themselves;  of  the  laws 
against  Papists  and  Dissenters:  and  amongst  people 
enamoured  to  excess  and  jealous  of  their  liberty,  it 
eeems  a  matter  of  surprise  that  this  principle  has  been 
so  imperfectly  attended  to. 

The  degree  of  actual  liberty  always  bearing,  ac- 
cording to  this  account  of  it,  a  reversed  proportion  to 
the  number  and  severity  of  the  restrictions  which  are 
either  useless,  or  the  utility  of  which  does  not  out- 
weigh the  evil  of  the  restraint,  it  follows,  that  every 
nation  possesses  some,  no  nation  perfect  liberty:  that 
this  liberty  may  be  enjoyed  under  every  form  of  go- 
vernment: that  it  may  be  impaired  indeed,  or  increas- 
ed, but  that  it  is  neither  gained,  nor  lost,  nor  recov- 
ered, by  any  single  regulation,  change,  or  event 
whatever:  that  consequently,  those  popular  phrases 
which  speak  of  a  free  people;  of  a  nation  of  slaves; 
which  call  one  revolution  the  era  of  liberty,  or  another 
the  loss  of  it,  with  many  expressions  of  a  like  ab- 
solute form,  are  intelligible  only  in  a  comparative 
sense. 

Hence  also  we  are  enabled  to  apprehend  the  dis- 
tinction between  personal  and  civil  liberty.  A  citizen 
of  the  freest  republic  in  the  world  may  be  imprisoned 
for  his  crimes;  and  though  his  personal  freedom  be 
restrained  by  bolts  and  fetters,  so  long  as  his  confine- 
ment is  the  effect  of  a  beneficial  public  law,  his  civil 
liberty  is  not  invaded.  If  this  instance  appear  dubi- 
ous, the  following  will  be  plainer.  A  passenger  from 
the  Levant,  who  upon  his  return  to  England,  should 
be  conveyed  to  a  lazaretto  by  an  order  of  quarantine, 
with  whatever  impatience  he  might  desire  his  enlarge- 
ment, and  though  he  saw  a  guard  placed  at  the  door 
to  oppose  his  escape  or  even  ready  to  destroy  his  life 
if  he  attempted  it,  whould  hardly  accuse  government 
of  encroaching  upon  his  civil  freedom;  nay,  might, 
perhaps,  be  all  the  while  congratulating  himself  that 
he  had  at  length  set  his  foot  again  in  a  land  of  liberty. 


96  CIVIL  LIBERTT. 

The  manifest  expediency  of  the  measure  not  only  jus- 
tifies it,  but  reconciles  the  most  odious  confinement 
with  the  perfect  possession,  and  the  loftiest  notions  of 
civil  liberty.  And  if  ihis  be  true  of  the  coercion  of 
a  prison,  that  it  is  compatible  with  a  state  of  civil  free- 
dom, it  cannot  with  reason  be  disputed  of  those  more 
moderate  constraints  which  the  ordinary  operation  of 
government  imposes  upon  the  will  of  the  individual. 
It  is  not  the  rigour,  but  the  inexpediency  of  laws  and 
acts  of  authority  which  makes  them  tyrannical. 

There  is  another  idea  of  civil  liberty  which,  though 
neither  so  simple  nor  so  accurate  as  the  former,  agrees 
better  with  the  signification  which  the  usage  of  com- 
mon discourse,  as  well  as  the  example  of  many  re- 
spectable writers  upon  the  subject,  has  affixed  to  the 
term.  This  idea  places  liberty  insecurity;  making  it 
to  consist,  not  merely  in  an  actual  exemption  from 
the  constraint  of  useless  and  noxious  laws  and  acts  of 
dominion,  but  in  being  free  from  the  danger  of  hav- 
ing such  hereafter  imposed  or  exercised.  Thus,  speak- 
ing of  the  political  state  of  modern  Europe,  we  are 
accustomed  to  say  of  Sweden,  that  she  hath  lost  her 
liberty  by  the  revolution  which  lately  took  place  in 
that  country;  and  yet  we  are  assured  that  the  people 
continue  to  be  governed  by  the  same  iavvs  as  before, 
or  by  others  whicn  are  wiser,  milder,  and  more  equita- 
ble. What  then  have  they  lost  ?  They  have  lost  the 
power  and  functions  of  their  diet;  the  constitution  of 
their  states  and  orders,  whose  deliberations  and  con- 
currence were  required  in  the  formation  and  establish- 
ment of  every  public  law;  and  thereby  have  parted 
with  the  security  which  they  possessed  against  any 
attempts  of  the  crown  to  harass  its  subjects,  by  op- 
pressive and  useless  exertions  of  prerogative.  The  loss 
of  this  security  we  denominate  the  loss  of  liberty. 
They  have  changed,  not  their  laws,  but  their  legisla- 
ture; not  their  enjoyment,  but  their  safety;  not  their 
present  burdens,  but  their  prospects  of  future  griev- 
ances; and  this  we  pronounce  a  change  from  the 
condition  of  freemen  to  that  of  slaves.  In  like  man- 
ner, in  our  own  country,  the  act  of  parliament,  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  which  gave  to  the  king's 


CIVIL  LIBERTY.  97 

proclamation  the  force  of  law,  has  properly  been  call- 
ed a  complete  and  formal  surrender  of  the  liberty  of 
the  nation;  and  would  have  been  so,  although  no  pro- 
clamation were  issued  in  pursuance  of  these  new  pow- 
ers, or  none  but  what  was  recommended  by  the  high- 
est wisdom  and  utility.  The  security  was  gone.  Were 
it  probable  that  the  welfare  and  accommodation  of 
the  people  would  be  as  studiously  and  as  providently 
consulted  in  the  edicts  of  a  despotic  prince,  as  by  the 
resolutions  of  a  popular  assembly,  then  would  an  ab- 
solute form  of  government  be  no  less  free  than  the 
purest  democracy.  The  different  degree  of  care  and 
knowledge  of  the  public  interest,  which  may  reasona- 
bly be  expected  from  the  different  form  and  composi- 
tion of  the  legislature,  constitutes  the  distinction,  in 
respect  of  liberty,  as  well  between  these  two  extremes, 
as  between  all  the  intermediate  modifications  of  civil 
government. 

The  definitions  which  have  been  framed  of  civil 
liberty,  and  which  have  become  the  subject  of  much 
unnecessary  altercation,  are  most  of  them  adapted  to 
this  idea.  Thus  one  political  writer  makes  the  very 
essence  of  the  subject's  liberty  to  consist  in  his  being 
governed  by  no  laws  but  those  to  which  he  hath  ac- 
tually consented;  another  is  satisfied  with  an  indirect 
and  virtual  consent;  another,  again,  places  civil 
liberty  in  the  separation  of  the  legislative  and  execu- 
tive offices  of  government;  another,  in  the  being  go- 
verned by  law,  that  is,  by  known,  preconstituted, 
inflexible  rules  of  action  and  adjudication;  a  fifth,  in 
the  exclusive  right  of  the  people  to  tax  themselves  by 
their  own  representatives;  a  sixth,  in  the  freedom 
and  purity  of  elections  of  representatives;  a  seventh, 
in  the  control  which  the  democratic  part  of  the  con- 
stitution possesses  over  the  military  establishment. 
Concerning  which,  and  some  other  similar  accounts 
of  civil  liberty,  it  may  be  observed,  that  they  all  la- 
bour under  one  inaccuracy,  viz.  that  they  describe  not 
so  much  liberty  itself,  as  the  safeguards  ancJ  preser- 
vatives of  liberty:  for  example,  a  man's  being  go- 
verned by  no  laws  but  those  to  which  he  has  given 
his  consent,  were  it  practicable,  is  no  otherwise  neces- 

VOL,.   II.  9 


98  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

sary  to  the  enjoyment  of  civil  liberty,  than  as  it  af 
fords  a  probable  security  against  the  dictation  of  laws 
imposing  superfluous  restrictions  upon  his  private  will. 
This  remark  is  applicable  to  the  rest.  The  diversity 
of  these  definitions  will  not  surprise  us,  when  we  con- 
sider that  there  is  no  contrariety  or  opposition  amongst 
them  whatever:  for,  by  how  many  different  provisions 
and  precautions  civil  liberty  is  fenced  and  protected, 
so  many  different  accounts  of  liberty  itself,  all  suffi- 
ciently consistent  with  truth  and  with  each  other, 
may,  according  to  this  mode  of  explaining  the  term, 
be  framed  and  adopted. 

Truth  cannot  be  offended  by  a  definition,  but  pro- 
priety may.  In  which  view,  those  definitions  of  li- 
berty ought  to  be  rejected,  which,  by  making  that 
essential  to  civil  freedom  which  is  unattainable  in 
experience,  inflame  expectations  that  can  never  be 
gratified,  and  disturb  the  public  content  with  com- 
plaints, which  no  wisdom  or  benevolence  of  govern- 
ment can  remove. 

It  will  not  be  thought  extraordinary,  that  an  idea, 
which  occurs  so  much  oftener  as  the  subject  of  pane- 
gyric and  careless  declamation,  than  of  just  reasoning 
or  correct  knowledge,  should  be  attended  with  un- 
certainty and  confusion;  or  that  it  should  be  found 
impossible  to  contrive  a  definition  which  may  include 
the  numerous,  unsettled,  and  ever  varying  significa- 
tions, which  the  term  is  made  to  stand  for,  and  at  the 
same  time  accord  with  the  condiUon  and  experience 
of  social  life. 

Of  the  two  ideas  that  have  been  stated  of  civil  li- 
berty, whichever  we  assume,  and  whatever  reasoning 
we  found  upon  them,  concerning  its  extent,  nature, 
value,  and  preservation,  this  is  the  conclusion; — that 
that  people,  government,  and  constitution  is  the  freest, 
which  makes  the  best  provision  for  the  enacting  of 
expedient  and  salutary  laws 


DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF   GOVERNMENT.  99 

CHAPTER  VI. 

OF  DIFFERENT   FORMS  OF   GOVERNMENT. 

As  a  series  of  appeals  must  be  finite,  there  neces- 
sarily exists  in  every  government  a  power  from  which 
the  constitution  has  provided  no  appeal;  and  which 
power,  for  that  reason,  maybe  termed  absolute,  omni- 
potent, uncontrollable,  arbitrary,  despotic;  and  is 
alike  so  in  all  countries. 

The  person,  or  assembly,  in  whom  this  power  re- 
sides, is  called  the  sovereign,  or  the  supreme  power 
of  the  state. 

Since  to  the  same  power  universally  appertains  the 
office  of  establishing  public  laws,  it  is  called  also  the 
legislature  of  the  state. 

A  government  receives  its  denomination  from  the 
form  of  the  legislature;  which  form  is  likewise  what 
we  commonly  mean  by  the  constitution  of  a  country. 

Political  writers  enumerate  three  principal  forms 
of  government,  which,  however,  are  to  be  regarded 
rather  as  the  simple  forms,  by  some  combination  and 
intermixture  of  which  all  actual  governments  are  com- 
posed, than  as  any  where  existing  in  a  pure  and  ele- 
mentary state.  These  forms  are, 

1.  Despotism,   or  absolute  MONARCHY,  where  the 
legislature  is  in  a  single  person. 

2.  An  ARISTOCRACY,  where  the  legislature  is  in  a 
select    assembly,  the  members  of  which  either  fill  up 
by  election   the  vacancies  in  their  own  body,  or  suc- 
ceed to   their   places  in  it  by   inheritance,  property, 
tenure  of  certain  lands,  or  in  respect  of  some  personal 
right  or  qualification. 

3.  A  REPUBLIC,  or  democracy,  where  the  people 
at  large,  either  collectively  or  by  representation,  con- 
stitute the  legislature. 

The  separate  advantages  of  MONARCHY  are  unity 
of  counsel,  activity,  decision,  secrecy,  dispatch  '*»« 
military  strength  and  energy  which  result  from  these 
qualities  of  government;  the  exclusion  of  popular 
and  aristocratical  contentions;  the  preventing,  by  a 


100  DIFFERENT  FORMS   OF   GOVERNMENT. 

known  rule  of  succession,  of  all  competition  for  the 
supreme  power;  and  thereby  repressing  the  hopes, 
intrigues,  and  dangerous  ambition  of  aspiring  citizens. 

The  mischiefs,  or  rather  the  dangers,  of  MONARCHY 
are  tyranny,  expense,  exaction,  military  domination; 
unnecessary  wars,  waged  to  gratify  the  passions  of  an 
individual;  risk  of  the  character  of  the  reigning  prince; 
ignorance  in  the  governors,  of  the  interests  and 
accommodation  of  the  people,  and  a  consequent  de- 
ficiency of  salutary  regulations-,  want  of  constancy 
and  uniformity  in  the  rules  of  government,  and,  pro- 
ceeding from  thence,  insecurity  of  person  and  pro- 
perty. 

The  separate  advantage  of  an  ARISTOCRACY  con- 
sists in  the  wisdom  which  may  be  expected  from  ex- 
perience and  education: — a  permanent  council  natu- 
rally possesses  experience;  and  the  members  who  suc- 
ceed to  their  places  in  it  by  inheritance  will,  proba- 
bly, be  trained  and  educated  with  a  view  to  the  sta- 
tions which  they  are  destined  by  their  birth  to  occupy. 

The  mischiefs  of  an  ARISTOCRACY  are  dissensions 
in  the  ruling  orders  of  the  state,  which,  from  the 
want  of  a  common  superior,  are  liable  to  proceed  to 
the  most  desperate  extremities;  oppression  of  the 
lower  orders  by  the  privileges  of  the  higher,  and  by 
laws  partial  to  the  separate  interest  of  the  law  makers. 

The  advantages  of  a  REPUBLIC  are  liberty,  or  ex- 
emption from  needless  restrictions;  equal  laws;  regu- 
lations adapted  to  the  wants  and  circumstances  of  the 
people;  public  spirit,  frugality,  averseness  to  war; 
the  opportunities  which  democratic  assemblies  afford 
to  men  of  every  description,  of  producing  their  abili- 
ties and  counsels  to  public  observation,  and  the  ex- 
citing thereby,  and  calling  forth  to  the  service  of  the 
commonwealth  the  faculties  of  its  best  citizens. 

The  evils  of  a  REPUBLIC  are  dissension,  tumults, 
faction;  the  attempts  of  powerful  citizens  to  possess 
themselves  of  the  empire;  the  confusion,  rage,  and 
clamour,  which  are  the  inevitable  consequences  of 
assembling  multitudes,  and  of  propounding  questions 
of  state  to  the  discussion  of  the  people;  the  delay  and 
disclosure  of  public  counsels  and  designs;  and  the 


DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF   GOVERNMENT.         101 

imbecility  of  measures  retarded  by  the  necessity  of  ob- 
taining the  consent  of  numbers:  lastly,  the  oppression 
of  the  provinces  which  are  not  admitted  to  a  partici- 
pation in  the  legislative  power. 

A  mixed  government  is  composed  by  the  combina- 
tion of  two  or  more  of  the  simple  forms  of  government 
above  described; — and  in  whatever  proportion  each 
form  enters  into  the  constitution  of  a  government,  in 
the  same  proportion  may  both  the  advantages  and 
evils,  which  we  have  attributed  to  that  form,  be  ex- 
pected; that  is,  those  are  the  uses  to  be  maintained 
and  cultivated  in  each  part  of  the  constitution,  and 
these  are  the  dangers  to  be  provided  against  in  each. 
Thus,  if  secrecy  and  dispatch  be  truly  enumerated 
amongst  the  separate  excellencies  of  regal  govern- 
ment, then  a  mixed  government,  which  retains  mo- 
narchy in  one  part  of  its  constitution,  should  be  care- 
ful that  the  other  estates  of  the  empire  do  not,  by  an 
officious  and  inquisitive  interference  with  the  execu- 
tive functions,  which  are,  or  ought  to  be,  reserved  to 
the  administration  of  the  prince,  interpose  delays,  or 
divulge  what  it  is  expedient  to  conceal.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  profusion,  exaction,  military  domina- 
tion, and  needless  wars  be  justly  accounted  natural 
properties  of  monarchy,  in  its  simple  unqualified  form; 
then  are  these  the  objects  to  which,  in  a  mixed  go- 
vernment, the  aristocratic  and  popular  parts  of  the 
constitution  ought  to  direct  their  vigilance;  the  dan- 
gers against  which  they  should  raise  and  fortify  their 
barriers;  these  are  departments  of  sovereignty,  over 
which  a  power  of  inspection  and  control  ought  to  be 
deposited  with  the  people. 

The  same  observation  may  be  repeated  of  all  the 
other  advantages  and  inconveniences  which  have 
been  ascribed  to  the  several  simple  forms  of  govern- 
ment; and  affords  a  rule  whereby  to  direct  the  con- 
struction, improvements,  and  administration  of  mixed 
government, — subjected  however  to  this  remark,  that 
a  quality  sometimes  results  from  the  conjunction  of 
two  simple  forms  of  government,  which  belongs  not 
to  the  separate  existence  of  either.  Thus  corruption, 
which  has  no  place  in  absolute  monarchy,  and  little  in 

voi*.  ii.  9  * 


102        DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT. 

a  pure  republic,  is  sure  to  gain  admission  into  a  con- 
stitution which  divides  the  supreme  power  between  an 
executive  magistrate  and  a  popular  council. 

An  hereditary  MONARCHY  is  universally  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  an  elective  monarchy.  The  confession  of 
every  writer  on  the  subject  of  civil  government,  the 
experience  of  ages,  the  example  of  Poland,  and  of  the 
papal  dominions,  seem  to  place  this  amongst  the  few 
indubitable  maxims  which  the  science  of  politics  ad- 
mits of.  A  crown  is  too  splendid  a  prize  to  be  con- 
ferred upon  merit:  the  passions  or  interests  of  the 
electors  exclude  all  consideration  of  the  qualities  of 
the  competitors.  The  same  observation  holds  con- 
cerning the  appointment  to  any  office  which  is  at- 
tended with  a  great  share  of  power  or  emolument. 
Nothing  is  gained  by  a  popular  choice,  worth  the  dis- 
sensions, tumults,  and  interruption  of  regular  indus- 
try, with  which  it  is  inseparably  attended.  Add  to 
this,  that  a  king  who  owes  his  elevation  to  the  event 
of  a  contest,  or  to  any  other  cause  than  a  fixed  rule  of 
succession,  will  be  apt  to  regard  one  part  of  his  sub- 
jects as  the  associates  of  his  fortune,  and  the  other  as 
conquered  foes.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  amongst 
the  advantages  of  an  hereditary  monarchy,  that,  as 
plans  of  national  improvement  and  reform  are  seldom 
brought  to  maturity  by  the  exertions  of  a  single  reign, 
a  nation  cannot  attain  to  the  degree  of  happiness  and 
prosperity  to  which  it  is  capable  of  being  carried, 
unless  a  uniformity  of  counsels,  a  consistency  of  pub- 
lic measures  and  designs,  be  continued  through  a 
succession  of  ages.  This  benefit  may  be  expected 
with  greater  probability,  where  the  supreme  power 
descends  in  the  same  race,  and  where  each  prince 
succeeds,  in  some  sort,  to  the  aim,  pursuits,  and  dis- 
position of  his  ancestor,  than  if  the  crown,  at  every 
change,  devolve  upon  a  stranger,  whose  first  care  will 
commonly  be  to  pull  down  what  his  predecessor  had 
built  up;  and  to  substitute  systems  of  administration, 
which  must,  in  their  turn,  give  way  to  the  more  fa- 
vourite novelties  of  the  next  successor. 

ARISTOCRACIES  are  of  two  kinds: — First,  where  the 
power  of  the  nobility  belongs  to  them  in  their  collec- 


DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT.        103 

tive  capacity  alone;  that  is,  where,  although  the  go- 
vernment reside  in  an  assembly  of  the  order,  yet  the 
members  of  that  assembly  separately  and  individually 
possess  no  authority  or  privilege  beyond  the  rest  of  the 
community: — this  describes  the  constitution  of  Ve- 
nice. Secondly,  where  the  nobles  are  severally  in- 
vested with  great  personal  power  and  immunities,  and 
where  the  power  of  the  senate  is  little  more  than  the 
aggregated  power  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it: 
— this  is  the  constitution  of  Poland.  Of  these  two 
forms  of  government,  the  first  is  more  tolerable  than 
the  last;  for,  although  the  members  of  a  senate  should 
many,  or  even  all  of  them,  be  profligate  enough  to 
abuse  the  authority  of  their  stations  in  the  prosecution 
of  private  designs,  yet,  not  being  all  under  a  tempta- 
tion to  the  same  injustice,  not  having  all  the  same  end 
to  gain,  it  would  still  be  difficult  to  obtain  the  con- 
sent of  a  majority  to  any  specific  act  of  oppression 
which  the  iniquity  of  an  individual  might  prompt 
him  to  propose:  or  if  the  will  were  the  same,  the 
power  is  more  confined;  one  tyrant,  whether  the 
tyranny  reside  in  a  single  person,  or  a  senate,  cannot 
exercise  oppression  at  so  many  places,  at  the  same 
time,  as  it  may  be  carried  on  by  the  dominion  of  a 
numerous  nobility  over  their  respective  vassals  and 
dependants.  Of  all  species  of  domination,  this  is  the 
most  odious:  the  freedom  and  satisfaction  of  private 
life  are  more  constrained  and  harassed  by  it  than  by 
the  most  vexatious  laws,  or  even  by  the  lawless  will  of 
an  arbitrary  monarch,  from  whose  knowledge,  and 
from  whose  injustice,  the  greatest  part  of  his  subjects 
are  removed  by  their  distance,  or  concealed  by  their 
obscurity. 

Europe  exhibits  more  than  one  modern  example, 
where  the  people,  aggrieved  by  the  exactions,  or  pro- 
voked by  the  enormities  of  their  immediate  superiors, 
have  joined  with  the  reigning  prince  in  the  over- 
throw of  the  aristocracy,  deliberately  exchanging  their 
condition  for  the  miseries  of  despotism.  About  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  the  commons  of  Den- 
mark, weary  of  the  oppressions  which  they  had  long 
Buffered  from  the  nobles,  and  exasperated  by  some  ie- 


104        DIFFERENT   FORMS  OF   GOVERNMENT. 

cent  insults,  presented  themselves  at  the  foot  of  the 
throne  with  a  formal  offer  of  their  consent  to  establish 
unlimited  dominion  in  the  king.  The  revolution  in 
Sweden,  still  more  lately  brought  about  with  the  ac- 
quiescence, not  to  say  the  assistance,  of  the  people, 
owed  its  success  to  the  same  cause,  namely,  to  th« 
prospect  of  deliverance  that  it  afforded  from  the  ty- 
ranny which  their  nobles  exercised  under  the  old  con- 
stitution. In  England,  the  people  beheld  the  depres- 
sion of  the  barons,  under  the  house  of  Tudor,  with 
satisfaction,  although  they  saw  the  crown  acquiring 
thereby  a  power  which  no  limitations  that  the  consti- 
tution had  then  provided  were  likely  to  confine.  The 
lesson  to  be  drawn  from  such  events  is  this:  that  a 
mixed  government,  which  admits  a  patrician  order 
into  its  constitution,  ought  to  circumscribe  the  per- 
sonal privileges  of  the  nobility,  especially  claims  of 
hereditary  jurisdiction  and  local  authority,  with  a 
jealousy  equal  to  the  solicitude  with  which  it  wishes 
its  own  preservation:  for  nothing  so  alienates  the 
minds  of  the  people  from  the  government  under  which 
they  live,  by  a  perpetual  sense  of  annoyance  and  in- 
conveniency,  or  so  prepares  them  for  the  practices  of 
an  enterprising  prince,  or  a  factious  demagogue,  as 
the  abuse  which  almost  always  accompanies  the  ex- 
istence of  separate  immunities. 

Amongst  the  inferior,  but  by  no  means  inconsider- 
able advantages  of  a  DEMOCRATIC  constitution,  or 
of  a  constitution  in  which  the  people  partake  of  the 
power  of  legislation,  the  following  should  not  be  ne- 
glected:— 

1.  The  direction  which  it  gives  to  the  education, 
studies,  and  pursuits  of  the  superior  orders  of  the 
community.  The  share  which  this  has  in  forming  the 
public  manners  and  national  character  is  very  impor- 
tant. In  countries  in  which  the  gentry  are  excluded 
from  all  concerns  in  the  government,  scarcely  any 
thing  is  left  which  leads  to  advancement,  but  the  pro- 
fession of  arms.  They  who  do  not  addict  themselves 
to  this  profession,  (and  miserable  must  that  country 
be,  which  constantly  employs  the  military  service  of  a 
great  proportion  of  any  order  of  its  subjects  !)  are 


I 

DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT.         105 

commonly  lost  by  the  mere  want  of  object  and  desti- 
nation; that  is,  they  either  fall,  without  reserve,  into 
the  most  sottish  habits  of  animal  gratification,  or  en- 
tirely devote  themselves  to  the  attainment  of  those 
futile  arts  and  decorations  which  compose  the  business 
and  recommendations  of  a  court:  on  the  other  hand, 
where  the  whole,  or  any  effective  portion,  of  civil 
power  is  possessed  by  a  popular  assembly,  more  serious 
pursuits  will  be  encouraged;  purer  morals,  and  a  more 
intellectual  character  will  engage  the  public  esteem; 
those  faculties  which  qualify  men  for  deliberation  and 
debate,  and  which  are  the  fruit  of  sober  habits,  of 
early  and  long  continued  application,  will  be  roused 
and  animated  by  the  reward  which,  of  all  others,  most 
readily  awakens  the  ambition  of  the  human  mind—- 
political dignity  and  importance. 

2.  Popular  elections   procure   to  the  common  peo- 
ple courtesy  from  their  superiors.     That  contemptuous 
and  overbearing  insolence,  with  which  the  lower  or- 
ders of  the  community  are  wont  to  be  treated  by  the 
higher,  is  greatly  mitigated  where  the  people   have 
something  to   give.     The   assiduity  with  which  their 
favour  is  sought  upon  these  occasions  serves  to  gene- 
rate settled  habits  of  condescension  and  respect;  and 
as  human  life  is  more  imbittered  by  affronts  than  in- 
juries, whatever  contributes  to  procure  mildness  and 
civility  of  manners  towards  those  who  are  most  liable 
to  suffer  from  a  contrary  behaviour,  corrects,  with  the 
pride,  in  a  great  measure,  the  evil  of  inequality,  and 
deserves  to  be  accounted  among  the  most  generous 
institutions  of  social  life. 

3.  The  satisfactions  which  the   people  of  free  go 
vernments  derive  from  the  knowledge  and  agitation  of  • 
political   subjects;  such   as  the  proceedings   and  de- 
bates of  the  senate;   the  conduct  and  characters  of 
ministers;  the  revolutions,  intrigues,  and  contentions 
of  parties;  and,   in  general,   from  the   discussion  of 
public  measures,  questions,  and  occurrences.      Sub- 
jects of  this  sort   excite  just  enough  of  interest  and 
emotion    to  afford    a   moderate    engagement    to    the 
thoughts,    without    rising   to  any   painful    degree    of 
anxiety,  or  ever  leaving  a  fixed  oppression  upon  the 


106        DIFFERENT  FORMS   OY  GOVERNMENT. 

spirits; — and  what  is  this,  but  the  end  and  aim  of  all 
those  amusements  which  compose  so  much  of  the  bu- 
siness of  life  and  the  value  of  riches?  For  my  part 
(and  I  believe  it  to  be  the  case  with  most  men  who 
are  arrived  at  the  middle  age,  and  occupy  the  middle 
classes  of  life,)  had  I  all  the  money  which  I  pay  in 
taxes  to  government,  at  liberty  to  lay  out  upon  amuse- 
ment and  diversion,  I  know  not  whether  I  could  make 
choice  of  any  in  which  I  could  find  greater  pleasure 
than  what  I  receive  from  expecting,  hearing,  and  re- 
lating public  news;  reading  parliamentary  debates 
and  proceedings;  canvassing  the  political  arguments,, 
projects,  predictions,  and  intelligence,  which  are  con- 
veyed, by  various  channels,  to  every  corner  of  the 
kingdom.  These  topics,  exciting  universal  curiosity, 
and  being  such  as  almost  every  man  is  ready  to  form 
and  prepared  to  deliver  his  opinion  about,  greatly 
promote,  and,  I  think,  improve  conversation.  They 
render  it  more  rational  and  more  innocent;  they  sup- 
ply a  substitute  for  drinking,  gaming,  scandal,  and 
obscenity.  Now  the  secrecy,  the  jealousy,  the  soli- 
tude, and  precipitation  of  despotic  governments  ex- 
clude all  this.  But  the  loss,  you  say,  is  trifling.  I 
know  that  it  is  possible  to  render  even  the  mention  of 
it  ridiculous,  by  representing  it  as  the  idle  employ- 
ment of  the  most  insignificant  part  of  the  nation,  the 
folly  of  village  statesmen  and  coffeehouse  politicians: 
but  I  allow  nothing  to  be  a  trifle  which  ministers  to 
the  harmless  gratification  of  multitudes;  nor  any  or- 
der of  men  to  be  insignificant  whose  number  bears  a 
respectable  proportion  to  the  sum  of  the  whole  com- 
munity. 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  an  opinion,  that  a 
REPUBLICAN  form  of  government  suits  only  with  the 
affairs  of  a  small  state:  which  opinion  is  founded  in 
the  consideration,  that  unless  the  people,  in  every  dis- 
trict of  the  empire,  be  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  na- 
tional representation,  the  government  is  not,  as  to 
them,  a  republic;  that  elections,  where  the  constitu- 
ents are  numerous,  and  dispersed  through  a  wide  ex- 
tent of  country,  are  conducted  with  difficulty,  or  rather, 
indeed,  managed  by  the  intrigues  and  combinations  of 


DIFFERENT  FORMS   OF    GOVERNMENT.         107 

a  few,  who  are  situated  near  the  place  of  election, 
each  voter  considering  his  single  suffrage  as  too 
minute  a  portion  of  the  general  interest  to  deserve  his 
care  or  attendance,  much  less  to  be  worth  any  oppo- 
sition to  influence  and  application;  that  whilst  we 
contract  the  representation  within  a  compass  small 
enough  to  admit  of  orderly  debate,  the  interest  of  the 
constituent  becomes  too  small,  or  the  representative 
too  great.  It  is  difficult  also  to  maintain  any  con- 
nexion between  them.  He  who  represents  two  hun- 
dred thousand  is  necessarily  a  stranger  to  the  greatest 
part  of  those  who  elect  him;  and  when  his  interest 
among  them  ceases  to  depend  upon  an  acquaintance 
with  their  persons  and  character,  or  a  care  or  know- 
ledge of  their  affairs;  when  such  a  representative  finds 
the  treasures  and  honours  of  a  great  empire  at  the  dis- 
posal of  a  few,  and  himself  one  of  the  few;  there  is 
little  reason  to  hope  that  he  will  not  prefer  to  his 
public  duty  those  temptations  of  personal  aggran- 
dizement which  his  situation  offers,  and  which  the 
price  of  his  vote  will  always  purchase.  All  appeal  to 
the  people  is  precluded  by  the  impossibility  of  collect- 
ing a  sufficient  proportion  of  their  force  and  numbers. 
The  factions  and  the  unanimity  of  the  senate  are 
equally  dangerous.  Add  to  these  considerations,  that 
in  a  democratic  constitution  the  mechanism  is  too 
complicated,  and  the  motions  too  slow,  for  the  opera- 
tions of  a  great  empire,  whose  defence  and  government 
require  execution  and  dispatch,  in  proportion  to  the 
magnitude,  extent,  and  variety  of  its  concerns.  There 
is  weight,  no  doubt,  in  these  reasons;  but  much  of 
the  objection  seems  to  be  done  away  by  the  contri- 
vance of  a  federal  republic,  which,  distributing  the 
country  into  districts  of  a  commodious  extent,  and 
leaving  to  each  district  its  internal  legislation,  reserves 
to  a  convention  of  the  states  the  adjustment  of  their 
relative  claims;  the  levying,  direction,  and  govern- 
ment of  the  common  force  of  the  confederacy;  the 
requisition  of  subsidies  for  the  support  of  this  force; 
the  making  of  peace  and  war;  the  entering  into  trea- 
ties; the  regulation  of  foreign  commerce;  the  equa- 
lization of  duties  upon  imports,  so  as  to  prevent  the 


108  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

defrauding  of  the  revenue  of  one  province  by  smug- 
gling articles  of  taxation  from  the  borders  of  another; 
and  likewise  so  as  to  gifard  against  undue  partialities 
in  the  encouragement  of  trade.  To  what  limits  such 
a  republic  might,  without  inconveniency,  enlarge  its 
dominions,  by  assuming  neighbouring  provinces  into 
the  confederation;  or  how  far  it  is  capable  of  uniting 
the  liberty  of  a  small  commonwealth  with  the  safety 
of  a  powerful  empire;  or  whether,  Amongst  coordi- 
nate powers,  dissensions  and  jealousies  would  not  be 
likely  to  arise,  which,  for  want  of  a  common  superior, 
might  proceed  to  fatal  extremities;  are  questions,  upon 
which  the  records  of  mankind  do  not  authorize  us  to 
decide  with  tolerable  certainty.  The  experiment  is 
about  to  be  tried  in  America  upon  a  large  scale. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

OF  THE   BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

BY  the  CONSTITUTION  of  a  country  is  meant  so 
much  of  its  law  as  relates  to  the  designation  and  form 
of  the  legislature;  the  rights  and  functions  of  the  sev- 
eral parts  of  the  legislative  body;  the  construction, 
office,  and  jurisdiction  of  courts  of  justice.  The  consti- 
tution is  one  principal  division,  section,  or  title  of  the 
code  of  public  laws;  distinguished  from  the  rest  only 
by  the  superior  importance  to  the  subject  of  which  it 
treats.  Therefore  the  terms  constitutional  and  uncon- 
stitutional mean  legal  and  illegal.  The  distinction  and 
the  ideas  which  these  terms  denote  are  founded  in  the 
same  authority  with  the  law  of  the  land  upon  any 
other  subject;  and  to  be  ascertained  by  the  same  in- 
quiries. In  England,  the  system  of  public  jurispru- 
dence is  made  up  of  acts  of  parliament,  of  decisions  of 
courts  of  law,  and  of  immemorial  usages;  conse- 
quently, these  are  the  principles  of  which  the  Eng- 
ligh  constitution  itself  consists,  the  sources  from  which 
all  our  knowledge  of  its  nature  and  limitations  is  to 
be  deduced,  and  the  authorities  to  which  all  appeal 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  109 

ought  to  be  made,  and  by  which  every  constitutional 
doubt  and  question  can  alone  be  decided.  This 
plain  and  intelligible  definition  is  the  more  necessary 
to  be  preserved  in  our  thoughts,  as  some  writers  upon 
the  subject  absurdly  confound  what  is  constitutional 
with  what  is  expedient;  pronouncing  forthwith  a 
measure  to  be  unconstitutional,  which  they  adjudge 
in  any  respect  to  be  detrimental  or  dangerous:  whilst 
others,  again,  ascribe  a  kind  of  transcendant  autho- 
rity, or  mysterious  sanctity,  to  the  constitution,  as  if 
it  were  founded  in  some  higher  original  than  that 
which  gives  force  and  obligation  to  the  ordinary  laws 
and  statutes  of  the  realm,  or  were  inviolable  on  any 
other  account  than  its  intrinsic  utility.  An  act  of  par- 
liament in  England  can  never  be  unconstitutional,  in 
the  strict  and  proper  acceptation  of  the  term;  in  a 
lower  sense  it  may,  viz.  when  it  militates  with  the 
spirit,  contradicts  the  analogy,  or  defeats  the  provi- 
sion of  other  laws,  made  to  regulate  the  form  of  go- 
vernment. Even  that  flagitious  abuse  of  their  trust, 
by  which  a  parliament  of  Henry  the  Eighth  conferred 
upon  the  king's  proclamation  the  authority  of  law, 
was  unconstitutional  only  in  this  latter  sense. 

Most  of  those  who  treat  of  the  British  constitution 
consider  it  as  a  scheme  of  government  formally  plan- 
ned and  contrived  by  our  ancestors,  in  some  cer- 
tain era  of  our  national  history,  and  as  set  up  in  pur- 
suance of  such  regular  plan  and  design.  Something 
of  this  sort  is  secretly  supposed,  or  referred  to,  in  the 
expressions  of  those  who  speak  of  the  "  principles  of 
the  constitution,"  of  bringing  back  the  constitution  to 
its  "  first  principles,"  of  restoring  it  to  its  "  original 
purity,"  or  "  primitive  model."  Now  this  appears  to 
me  an  erroneous  conception  of  the  subject.  No  such 
plan  was  ever  formed;  consequently  no  such  first 
principles,  original  model,  or  standard,  exist:  I  mean, 
there  never  was  a  date  or  point  of  time  in  our  history, 
when  the  government  of  England  was  to  be  set  up 
anew,  and  when  it  was  referred  to  any  single  person, 
or  assembly,  or  committee,  to  frame  a  charter  for 
the  future  government  of  the  country;  or  when  a 
constitution  so  prepared  and  digested  was  by  com- 

VOL.   II.  10 


110  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

mon  consent  received  and  established.  In  the  time 
of  the  civil  wars,  or  rather  between  the  death  of 
Charles  the  the  First  and  the  restoration  of  his  son, 
many  such  projects  were  published,  but  none  were  car- 
ried into  execution.  The  Great  Charter  and  the  Bill  of 
Rights  were  wise  and  strenuous  efforts  to  obtain  secu- 
rity against  certain  abuses  of  regal  power,  by  which 
the  subject  had  been  formerly  aggrieved:  but  these 
were,  either  of  them,  much  too  pa/tial  modifications 
of  the  constitution,  to  give  it  a  new  original.  The 
constitution  of  England,  like  that  of  most  countries  of 
Europe,  hath  grown  out  of  occasion  and  emergency; 
from  the  fluctuating  policy  of  different  ages;  from  the 
contentions,  successes,  interests,  and  opportunities  of 
different  orders  and  parties  of  men  in  the  community. 
It  resembles  one  of  those  old  mansions,  which,  instead 
of  being  built  all  at  once,  after  a  regular  plan,  and 
according  to  the  rules  of  architecture  at  present  es- 
tablished, has  been  reared  in  different  ages  of  the  art, 
has  been  altered  from  time  to  time,  arid  has  been 
continually  receiving  additions  and  repairs,  suited  to 
the  taste,  fortune,  or  conveniency  of  its  successive 
proprietors.  In  such  a  building,  we  look  in  vain  for 
the  elegance  and  proportion,  for  the  just  order  and 
correspondence  of  parts,  which  we  expect  in  a  mo- 
dern edifice;  and  which  external  symmetry,  after  all, 
contributes  much  more  perhaps  to  the  amusement 
of  the  beholder  than  the  accommodation  of  the  inha- 
bitant. 

In  the  British,  and  possibly  in  all  other  constitu- 
tions, there  exists  a  wide  difference  between  the  actual 
Ft  ate  of  the  government  and  the  theory.  The  one  re- 
sults from  the  other;  but  still  they  are  different.  When 
we  contemplate  the  theory  of  the  British  government, 
we  ,«oe  the  king  invested  with  the  most  absolute  per- 
sonal impunity;  with  a  power  of  rejecting  laws,  which 
have  been  resolved  upon  by  both  houses  of  parlia- 
ment; of  conferring  by  his  charter,  upon  any  set  or 
succession  of  men  he  pleases,  the  privilege  of  sending 
representatives  into  one  house  of  parliament,  as  by 
his  immediate  appointment  he  can  place  whom  he 
will  in  the  other.  What  is  this,  a  foreigner  might  ask, 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  Ill 

but  a  more  circuitous  despotism  ?  Yet,  when  we  turn 
our  attention  from  the  legal  extent  to  the  actual  ex- 
ercise of  royal  authority  in  England,  we  see  these 
formidable  prerogatives  dwindled  into  mere  ceremo- 
nies; and,  in  their  stead,  a  sure  and  commanding  in- 
fluence, of  which  the  constitution,  it  seems,  is  totally 
ignorant,  growing  out  of  that  enormous  patronage 
which  the  increased  territory  and  opulence  of  the 
empire  have  placed  in  the  disposal  of  the  executive 
magistrate. 

Upon  questions  of  reform,  the  habit  of  reflection  to 
be  encouraged  is  a  sober  comparison  of  the  constitu- 
tion under  which  we  live, — not  with  models  of  spe- 
culative perfection,  but  with  the  actual  chance  of  ob- 
taining a  better.  This  turn  of  thought  will  generate 
a  political  disposition,  equally  removed  from  that 
puerile  admiration  of  present  establishments,  which 
sees  no  fault,  and  can  endure  no  change;  and  that 
distempered  sensibility,  which  is  alive  only  to  per- 
ceptions of  inconveniency,  and  is  too  impatient  to  be 
delivered  from  the  uneasiness  which  it  feels,  to  com- 
pute either  the  peril  or  expense  of  the  remedy.  Politi- 
cal innovations  commonly  produce  many  effects  beside 
those  that  are  intended.  The  direct  consequence  is 
often  the  least  important.  Incidental,  remote,  and 
unthought  of  evils  or  advantages  frequently  exceed 
that  good  that  is  designed,  or  the  mischief  that  is  fore- 
seen. It  is  from  the  silent  and  unobserved  operation, 
from  the  obscure  progress  of  causes  set  at  work  for 
different  purposes,  that  the  greatest  revolutions  take 
their  rise.  When  Elizabeth  and  her  immediate  suc- 
cessor applied  themselves  to  the  encouragement  and 
regulation  of  trade  by  many  wise  laws,  they  knew  not, 
that,  together  with  wealth  and  industry,  they  were 
diffusing  a  consciousness  of  strength  and  indepen- 
dency, which  would  not  long  endure,  under  the  forms 
of  a  mixed  government,  the  dominion  of  arbitrary 
princes.  When  it  was  debated  whether  the  mutiny 
act,  the  law  by  which  the  army  is  governed  and  main- 
tained, should  be  temporary  or  perpetual,  little  else 
probably  occurred  to  the  advocates  of  an  annual  bill 
than  the  expediency  of  retaining  a  control  over  the 


112  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

most  dangerous  prerogative  of  the  crown, — the  direc- 
tion and  command  of  a  standing  army;  whereas,  in 
its  effect,  this  single  reservation  has  altered  the  whole 
frame  and  quality  of  the  British  constitution.  For 
since,  in  consequence  of  the  military  system  which 
prevails  in  neighbouring  and  rival  nations,  as  well  as 
on  account  of  the  internal  exigencies  of  government, 
a  standing  army  has  become  essential  to  the  safety 
and  administration  of  the  empire,  it  enables  parlia- 
ment, by  discontinuing  this  necessary  provision,  so  to 
enforce  its  resolutions  upon  any  other  subject,  as  to 
render  the  king's  dissent  to  a  law  which  has  received 
the  approbation  of  both  houses,  too  dangerous  an  ex- 
periment any  longer  to  be  advised.  A  contest  be- 
tween the  king  and  parliament  cannot  now  be  per- 
severed in  without  a  dissolution  of  the  government 
Lastly,  when  the  constitution  conferred  upon  the 
crown  the  nomination  to  all  employments  in  the  pub- 
lic service,  the  authors  of  this  arrangement  were  led 
to  it,  by  the  obvious  propriety  of  leaving  to  a  master 
the  choice  of  his  servants;  and  by  the  manifest  incon- 
Teniency  of  engaging  the  national  council,  upon  every 
vacancy,  in  those  personal  contests  which  attend  elec- 
tions to  places  of  honour  and  emolument.  Our  an- 
cestors did  not  observe  that  this  disposition  added  an 
influence  to  the  regal  office,  which,  as  the  number  and 
value  of  public  employments  increased,  would  super- 
sede in  a  great  measure  the  forms,  and  change  the 
character,  of  the  ancient  constitution.  They  knew 
not,  what  the  experience  and  reflection  of  modern 
ages  have  discovered,  that  patronage  universally  is 
power;  that  he  who  possesses  in  a  sufficient  degree 
the  means  of  gratifying  the  desires  of  mankind  after 
wealth  and  distinction,  by  whatever  checks  and  forms 
his  authority  may  be  limited  or  disguised,  will  direct 
the  management  of  public  affairs.  Whatever  be  the 
mechanism  of  the  political  engine,  he  will  guide  the 
motion.  These  instances  are  adduced  in  order  to 
illustrate  the  proposition  which  we  laid  down,  that,  in 
politics,  the  most  important  and  permanent  effects 
have,  for  the  most  part,  been  incidental  and  unfore- 
seen: And  this  proposition  we  inculcate,  for  the  sake 


BRITISH  COXSTITUTIOIf.  113 

of  the  caution  which  teaches  that  changes  ought  not  to 
be  adventured  upon  without  a  comprehensive  discern- 
ment of  the  consequences, — without  a  knowledge  as 
well  of  the  remote  tendency,  as  of  the  immediate  de- 
sign. The  courage  of  a  statesman  should  resemble 
that  of  a  commander,  who,  however  regardless  of  per- 
sonal danger,  never  forgets  that,  with  his  own,  he 
commits  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  a  multitude;  and 
who  does  not  consider  it  as  any  proof  of  zeal  or  va- 
lour, to  stake  the  safety  of  other  men  upon  the  suc- 
cess of  a  perilous  or  desperate  enterprise. 

There  is  one  end  of  civil  government  peculiar  to  a 
good  constitution,  namely,  the  happiness  of  its  sub- 
jects; there  is  another  end  essential  to  a  good  govern- 
ment, but  common  to  it  with  many  bad  ones, — its 
own  preservation.  Observing  that  the  best  form  of- 
government  would  be  defective  which  did  not  pro- 
vide for  its  own  permanency,  in  our  political  reason- 
ings we  consider  all  such  provisions  as  expedient; 
and  are  content  to  accept  as  a  sufficient  ground  for  a 
measure,  or  law,  that  it  is  necessary  or  conducive  to 
the  preservation  of  the  constitution.  Yet,  in  truth, 
such  provisions  are  absolutely  expedient,  and  such  an 
excuse  final  only  whilst  the  constitution  is  worth  pre- 
serving; that  is,  until  it  can  be  exchanged  for  a  bet- 
ter. I  premise  this  distinction,  because  many  things 
in  the  English,  as  in  every  constitution,  are  to  be  vin- 
dicated and  accounted  for  solely  from  their  tendency 
to  maintain  the  government  in  its  present  state,  and 
the  several  parts  of  it  in  possession  of  the  powers 
which  the  constitution  has  assigned  to  them;  and 
because  I  would  wish  it  to  be  remarked,  that  such 
a  consideration  is  always  subordinate  to  another, — - 
the  value  and  usefulness  of  the  constitution  itself. 

The  Government  of  England,  which  has  been 
sometimes  called  a  mixed  government,  sometimes  a 
limited  monarchy,  is  formed  by  a  combination  of  the 
three  regular  species  of  government — the  monarchy, 
residing  in  the  King;  the  aristocracy,  in  the  House 
of  Lords;  and  the  republic,  being  represented  by  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  perfection  intended  by 
such  a  scheme  of  government  is,  to  unite  the  advan- 

VOL.   II.  10  * 


114  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

tages  of  the  several  simple  forms,  and  to  exclude  the 
inconveniencies.  To  what  degree  this  purpose  is 
attained  or  attainable  in  the  British  constitution; 
wherein  it  is  lost  sight  of  or  neglected;  and  by  what 
means  it  may  in  any  part  be  promoted  with  better 
success,  the  reader  will  be  enabled  to  judge,  by  a 
separate  recollection  of  these  advantages  and  incon- 
veniencies, as  enumerated  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
and  a  distinct  application  of  each  to  the  political  con- 
dition of  this  country.  We  will  present  our  remarks 
upon  the  subject  in  a  brief  account  of  the  expedients 
by  which  the  British  constitution  provides, 

1st,  For  the  interest  of  its  subjects; 

2dly,  For  its  own  preservation. 

The  contrivances  for  the  first  of  these  purposes  are 
the  following: — 

In  order  to  promote  the  establishment  of  salutary 
public  laws,  every  citizen  of  the  state  is  capable  of 
becoming  a  member  of  the  senate;  and  every  senator 
possesses  the  right  of  propounding  to  the  deliberation 
of  the  legislature  whatever  law  he  pleases. 

Every  district  of  the  empire  enjoys  the  privilege  of 
choosing  representatives,  informed  of  the  interests, 
and  circumstances,  and  desires  of  their  constituents, 
and  entitled  by  their  situation  to  communicate  that 
information  to  the  national  council.  The  meanest 
subject  has  some  one  whom  he  can  call  upon  to  bring 
forward  his  complaints  and  requests  to  public  atten- 
tion. 

By  annexing  the  right  of  voting  for  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  different  qualifications  in  dif- 
ferent places,  each  order  and  profession  of  men  in  the 
community  become  virtually  represented;  that  is, 
men  of  all  orders  and  professions,  statesmen,  courtiers, 
country  gentlemen,  lawyers,  merchants,  manufac- 
turers, soldiers,  sailors,  interested  in  the  prosperity, 
and  experienced  in  the  occupation  of  their  respective 
professions,  obtain  seats  in  parliament. 

The  elections  at  the  same  time  are  so  connected 
with  the  influence  of  landed  property,  as  to  afford  a 
certainty  that  a  considerable  number  of  men  of  great 
estates  will  be  returned  to  parliament;  and  are  also 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  115 

so  modified,  that  men  the  most  eminent  and  success- 
ful in  their  respective  professions  are  the  most  likely, 
by  their  riches,  or  the  weight  of  their  stations,  to  pre- 
vail in  these  competitions. 

The  number,  fortune,  and  quality  of  the  members;  - 
the  variety  of  interests  and  characters  amongst  them; 
above  all,  the  temporary  duration  of  their  power,  and 
the  change  of  men  which  every  new  election  pro- 
duces; are  so  many  securities  to  the  public,  as  well 
against  the  subjection  of  their  judgments  to  any  ex- 
ternal dictation,  as  against  the  formation  of  a  junto  in 
their  own  body,  sufficiently  powerful  to  govern  their 
decisions.  / 

The  representatives  are  so  intermixed  with  the  con-  & 
stituents,  and  the  constituents  with  the  rest  of  the 
people,  that  they  cannot,  without  a  partiality  too  fla- 
grant to  be  endured,  impose  any  burthen  upon  the 
subject,  in  which  they  do  not  share  themselves;  nor 
scarcely  can  they  adopt  an  advantageous  regulation, 
in  which  their  own  interests  will  not  participate  of  the 
advantage.  y 

The   proceedings  and  debates  of  parliament,   and  / 
the  parliamentary  conduct  of  each  representative,  are 
known  by  the  people  at  large. 

The  representative  is  so  far  dependent  upon  the  0 
constituent,  and  political  importance  upon  public  fa- 
vour, that  a  member  of  parliament  cannot  more  effec- 
tually recommend  himself  to  eminence  and  advance- 
ment in  the  state,  than  by  contriving  and  patronizing 
laws  of  public  utility. 

When  intelligence  of  the  condition,  wants,  and  oc-  G 
casions  of  the  people,  is  thus  collected  from  every 
quarter;  when  such  a  variety  of  invention,  and  so 
many  understandings  are  set  at  work  upon  the  sub- 
ject; it  may  be  presumed,  that  the  most  eligible  ex- 
pedient, remedy,  or  improvement  will  occur  to  some 
one  or  other:  and  when  a  wise  counsel,  or  beneficial 
regulation,  is  once  suggested,  it  may  be  expected  from 
the  disposition  of  an  assembly  so  constituted  as  the 
British  House  of  Commons  is,  that  it  cannot  fail  of 
receiving  the  approbation  of  a  majority.  ,, 

To  prevent  those    destructive  contentions  for   the 


116  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

supreme  power,  which  are  sure  to  take  place  where 
the  members  of  the  state  do  not  live  under  an  acknow- 
ledged head,  and  a  known  rule  of  succession;  to  pre- 
serve the  people  in  tranquillity  at  home,  by  a  speedy 
and  vigorous  execution  of  the  laws;  to  protect  their 
interest  abroad,  by  strength  and  energy  in  military 
operations,  by  those  advantages  of  decision,  secrecy, 
and  dispatch,  which  belong  to  the  resolutions  of  mo- 
narchical councils; — for  these  purposes,  the  constitu- 
tion has  committed  the  executive  government  to  the 
administration  and  limited  authority  of  an  hereditary 
king. 

In  the  defence  of  the  empire;  in  the  maintenance 
of  its  power,  dignity,  and  privileges,  with  foreign 
nations;  in  the  advancement  of  its  trade  by  treaties 
and  conventions;  and  in  the  providing  for  the  general 
administration  of  municipal  justice,  by  a  proper  choice 
and  appointment  of  magistrates;  the  inclination  of  the 
king  and  of  the  people  usually  coincides:  in  this  part, 
therefore,  of  the  regal  office,  the  constitution  intrusts 
the  prerogative  with  ample  powers. 

The  dangers  principally  to  be  apprehended  from 
regal  government  relate  to  the  two  articles  taxation 
and  punishment.  In  every  form  of  government  from 
which  the  people  are  excluded,  it  is  the  interest  of  the 
governors  to  get  as  much,  and  of  the  governed  to  give 
as  little,  as  they  can:  the  power  also  of  punishment, 
in  the  hands  of  an  arbitrary  prince,  oftentimes  becomes 
an  engine  of  extortion,  jealousy,  and  revenge.  Wisely, 
therefore,  hath  the  British  constitution  guarded  the 
safety  of  the  people,  in  these  two  points,  by  the  most 
studious  precautions. 

Upon  that  of  taxation,  every  law  which,  by  the 
remotest  construction,  may  be  deemed  to  levy  money 
upon  the  property  of  the  subject,  must  originate,  that 
is,  must  first  be  proposed  and  assented  to  in  the 
House  of  Commons:  by  which  regulation,  accompa- 
nying the  weight  which  that  assembly  possesses  in 
all  its  functions,  the  levying  of  taxes  is  almost  exclu- 
sively reserved  to  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution, 
who,  it  is  presumed,  will  not  tax  themselves,  nor  their 
fellow-subjects,  without  being  first  convinced  of  the 
necessity  of  the  aids  which  they  grant. 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  117 

The  application  also  of  the  public  supplies  is 
watched  with  the  same  circumspection  as  the  assess- 
ment. Many  taxes  are  annual;  the  produce  of  others 
is  mortgaged,  or  appropriated  to  specific  services:  the 
expenditure  of  all  of  them  is  accounted  for  in  the 
House  of  Commons;  as  computations  of  the  charge  of 
the  purpose  for  which  they  are  wanted  are  previously 
submitted  to  the  same  tribunal. 

In  the  infliction  of  punishment,  the  power  of  the 
crown,  and  of  the  magistrate  appointed  by  the  crown, 
is  confined  by  the  most  precise  limitations:  the  guilt 
of  the  offender  must  be  pronounced  by  twelve  men  of 
his  own  order,  indifferently  chosen  out  of  the  county 
where  the  offence  was  committed  :  the  punishment, 
or  the  limits  to  which  the  punishment  may  be  extended, 
are  ascertained,  and  affixed  to  the  crime,  by  laws 
which  know  not  the  person  of  the  criminal. 

And  whereas  arbitrary  or  clandestine  confinement 
is  the  injury  most  to  be  dreaded  from  the  strong  hand 
of  the  executive  government,  because  it  deprives  the 
prisoner  at  once  of  protection  and  defence,  and  delivers 
him  into  the  power,  and  to  the  malicious  or  interested 
designs  of  his  enemies;  the  constitution  has  provided 
against  this  danger  with  double  solicitude.  The 
ancient  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  the  habeas  corpus  act 
of  Charles  the  Second,  and  the  practice  and  determi- 
nations of  our  sovereign  courts  of  justice  founded  upon 
these  laws,  afford  a  complete  remedy  for  every  con- 
ceivable case  of  illegal  imprisonment.* 

*  Upon  complaint  in  writing  by,  or  on  behalf  of,  any  per- 
son in  confinement,  to  any  of  the  four  courts  of  Westminster- 
Hall,  in  term-time,  or  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  or  one  of  the 
Judges,  in  the  vacation  ;  and  upon  a  probable  reason  being 
suggested  to  question  the  legality  of  the  detention  ;  a  writ 
is  issued  to  the  person  in  whose  custody  the  complainant  is 
alleged  to  be,  commanding  him  within  a  certain  limited  and 
short  time  to  produce  the  body  of  the  prisoner,  and  the  au- 
thority under  which  he  is  detained.  Upon  the  return  of  the 
writ,  strict  and  instantaneous  obedience  to  which  is  enforced 
by  very  severe  penalties,  if  no  lawful  cause  of  imprisonment 
appear,  the  court  or  judge,  before  whom  the  prisoner  is 
brought,  is  authorized  and  bound  to  discharge  him  ;  even 


118  HKITISH   CONSTITUTION. 

Treason  being  that  charge  under  colour  of  which 
the  destruction  of  an  obnoxious  individual  is  often 
sought;  and  government  being  at  all  times  more  im- 
mediately a  party  in  the  prosecution;  the  law,  beside 
the  general  care  with  which  it  watches  over  the  safety 
of  the  accused,  in  this  case,  sensible  of  the  unequal 
contest  in  which  the  subject  is  engaged,  has  assisted 
his  defence  with  extraordinary  indulgences.  By  two 
statutes,  enacted  since  the  Revolution,  every  person 
indicted  for  high  treason  shall  have  a  copy  of  his  in- 
dictment, a  list  of  the  witnesses  to  be  produced,  and 
of  the  jury  impanneled,  delivered  to  him  ten  days  be- 
fore the  trial ;  he  is  also  permitted  to  make  his  defence 
by  counsel; — privileges  which  are  not  allowed  to  the 
prisoner,  in  a  trial  for  any  other  crime:  and,  what  is 
of  more  importance  to  the  party  than  all  the  rest,  the 
testimony  of  two  witnesses,  at  the  least,  is  required  to 
convict  a  person  of  treason;  whereas,  one  positive 
witness  is  sufficient  in  almost  every  other  species  of 
accusation. 

We  proceed,  in  the  second  place,  to  inquire  in  what 
manner  the  constitution  has  provided  for  its  own  pre- 
servation; that  is,  in  what  manner  each  part  of  the 
legislature  is  secured  in  the  exercise  of  the  powers 
assigned  to  it,  from  the  encroachments  of  the  other 
parts.  This  security  is  sometimes  called  the  balance 
of  the  constitution:  and  the  political  equilibrium 
which  this  phrase  denotes,  consists  in  two  contrivances, 
— a  balance  of  power,  and  a  balance  of  interest.  By 
a  balance  of  power  is  meant,  that  there  is  no  power 

though  he  may  have  been  committed  by  a  secretary,  or  other 
high  officer  of  state,  by  the  privy-council,  or  by  the  king  in 
person  :  so  that  no  subject  of  this  realm  can  be  held  in  con- 
finement by  any  power,  or  under  any  pretence  whatever, 
provided  he  can  find  means  to  convey  his  complaint  to  one 
of  the  four  courts  of  Westminster-Hall,  or,  during  their  re- 
cess, to  any  of  the  Judges  of  the  same,  unless  all  these  seve- 
ral tribunals  agree  in  determining  his  imprisonment  to  be 
legal.  He  may  make  application  to  them  in  succession ; 
and  if  one  out  of  the  number  be  found,  who  thinks  the  pri- 
soner entitled  to  his  liberty,  that  one  possesses  authority  to 
restore  it  to  him. 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  119 

possessed  by  one  part  of  the  legislature,  the  abuse  or 
excess  of  which  is  not  checked  by  some  antagonist 
power,  residing  in  another  part.  Thus  the  power  of 
the  two  houses  of  parliament  to  frame  laws  is  checked 
by  the  king's  negative;  that  if  laws  subversive  of 
regal  government  should  obtain  the  consent  of  parlia- 
ment, the  reigning  prince,  by  interposing  his  preroga- 
tive, may  save  the  necessary  rights  and  authority  of 
his  station.  On  the  other  hand,  the  arbitrary  appli- 
cation of  this  negative  is  checked  by  the  privilege 
which  parliament  possesses,  of  refusing  supplies  of 
money  to  the  exigencies  of  the  king's  administration. 
The  constitutional  maxim,  «« that  the  king  can  do  no 
wrong,"  is  balanced  by  another  maxim  not  less  con- 
stitutional, "  that  the  illegal  commands  of  the  king 
do  not  justify  those  who  assist,  or  concur,  in  carrying 
them  into  execution;"  and  by  a  second  rule,  subsidiary 
to  this,  '*  that  the  acts  of  the  crown  acquire  not  a 
legal  force,  until  authenticated  by  the  subscription  of 
some  of  its  great  officers."  The  wisdom  of  this  con- 
trivance is  worthy  of  observation.  As  the  king  could 
not  be  punished  without  a  civil  war,  the  constitution 
exempts  his  person  from  trial  or  account;  but,  lest 
this  impunity  should  encourage  a  licentious  exercise 
of  dominion,  various  obstacles  are  opposed  to  the  pri- 
vate will  of  the  sovereign,  when  directed  to  illegal 
objects.  The  pleasure  of  the  crown  must  be  announced 
with  certain  solemnities,  and  attested  by  certain  offi- 
cers of  state.  In  some  cases,  the  royal  order  must  be 
signified  by  a  secretary  of  state;  in  others,  it  must 
pass  under  the  privy  seal;  and  in  many  under  the 
great  seal.  And  when  the  king's  command  is  regu- 
larly published,  no  mischief  can  be  achieved  by  it, 
without  the  ministry  and  compliance  of  those  to 
whom  it  is  directed.  Now  all  who  either  concur  in 
an  illegal  order,  by  authenticating  its  publication 
with  their  seal  or  subscription,  or  who  in  any  man- 
ner assist  in  carrying  it  into  execution,  subject  them- 
selves to  prosecution  and  punishment  for  the  part 
they  have  taken;  and  are  not  permitted  to  plead 
or  oroduce  the  command  of  the  king  in  justification 


120  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

of  their  obedience.*  But  further:  the  power  of  the 
crown  to  direct  the  military  force  of  the  kingdom  is 
balanced  by  the  annual  necessity  of  resorting  to  par- 
liament for  the  maintenance  and  government  of  that 
force.  The  power  of  the  king  to  declare  war  is 
checked  by  the  privilege  of  the  House  of  Commons 
to  grant  or  withhold  the  supplies  by  which  the  war 
must  be  carried  on.  The  king's  choice  of  his  ministers 
is  controlled  by  the  obligation  he  is  under  of  appoint- 
ing those  men  to  offices  in  the  state,  who  are  found 
capable  of  managing  the  affairs  of  his  government  with 
the  two  houses  of  parliament.  Which  consideration 
imposes  such  a  necessity  upon  the  crown,  as  hath  in 
a  great  measure  subdued  the  influence  of  favouritism: 
insomuch  that  it  is  become  no  uncommon  spectacle  in 
this  country,  to  see  men  promoted  by  the  king  to  the 
highest  offices  and  richest  preferments  which  he  has 
in  his  power  to  bestow,  who  have  been  distinguished 
by  their  opposition  to  his  personal  inclinations. 

By  the  balance  of  interest,  which  accompanies  and 
gives  efficacy  to  the  balance  of  power,  is  meant  this; — 
that  the  respective  interests  of  the  three  estates  of  the 
empire  are  so  disposed  and  adjusted,  that  whichever 
of  the  three  shall  attempt  any  encroachment,  the  other 
two  will  unite  in  resisting  it.  If  the  king  should  en- 
deavour to  extend  his  authority,  by  contracting  the 
power  and  privileges  of  the  Commons,  the  House  of 
Lords  would  see  their  own  dignity  endangered  by 

*  Amongst  the  checks  which  Parliament  holds  over  the  ad- 
ministration of  public  affairs,  I  forbear  to  mention  the  prac- 
tice of  addressing  the  king,  to  know  by  whose  advice  he  re- 
solved upon  a  particular  measure ;  and  of  punishing  the  au- 
thors of  that  advice,  for  the  counsel  they  had  given.  Not 
because  I  think  this  method  either  unconstitutional  or  im- 
proper ;  but  for  this  reason, — that  it  does  not  so  much  sub- 
ject the  king  to  the  control  of  Parliament  as  it  supposes  him 
to  be  already  in  subjection.  For  if  the  king  were  so  far  out 
of  the  reach  of  the  resentment  of  the  House  of  Commons,  as 
to  be  able  with  safety  to  refuse  the  information  requested,  or 
to  take  upon  himself  the  responsibility  inquired  after,  there 
must  be  an  end  of  all  proceedings  founded  in  this  mode  of 
application. 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  121 

every  advance  which  the  Crown  made  to  independency 
upon  the  resolutions  of  parliament.  The  admission 
of  arbitrary  power  is  no  less  formidable  to  the  grandeur 
of  aristocracy  than  it  is  fatal  to  the  liberty  of  the 
republic;  that  is,  it  would  reduce  the  nobility  from 
the  hereditary  share  they  possess  in  the  national  coun- 
cils, in  which  their  real  greatness  consists,  to  the  being 
made  a  part  of  the  empty  pageantry  of  a  despotic 
court.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  House  of  Commons 
should  intrench  upon  the  distinct  province,  or  usurp 
the  established  prerogative  of  the  crown,  the  House  of 
Lords  would  receive  an  instant  alarm  from  every  new 
stretch  of  popular  power.  In  every  contest  in  which 
the  king  may  be  engaged  with  the  representative  body, 
in  defence  of  his  established  share  of  authority,  he  will 
find  a  sure  ally  in  the  collective  power  of  the  nobility. 
An  attachment  to  the  monarchy,  from  which  they  derive 
their  own  distinction;  the  allurements  of  a  court,  in 
the  habits  and  with  the  sentiments  of  which  they  have 
been  brought  up;  their  hatred  of  equality  and  of  all 
levelling  pretensions,  which  may  ultimately  effect  the 
privileges,  or  even  the  existence,  of  their  order;  in 
short,  every  principle  and  every  prejudice  which  are 
wont  to  actuate  human  conduct,  will  determine  their 
choice  to  the  side  and  support  of  the  crown.  Lastly, 
if  the  nobles  themselves  should  attempt  to  revive  the 
superiorities  which  their  ancestors  exercised  under  the 
feudal  constitution,  the  king  and  the  people  would 
alike  remember,  how  the  one  had  been  insulted,  and 
the  other  enslaved,  by  that  barbarous  tyranny.  They 
would  forget  the  natural  opposition  of  their  views  and 
inclinations,  when  they  saw  themselves  threatened 
with  the  return  of  a  domination  which  was  odious  and 
intolerable  to  both. 

The  reader  will  have  observed,  that  in  describing' 
the  British  constitution,  little  notice  has  been  taken 
of  the  House  of  Lords.  The  proper  use  and  design 
of  this  part  of  the  constitution  are  the  following: 
First,  to  enable  the  king,  by  his  right  of  bestowing 
the  peerage,  to  reward  the  servants  of  the  public,  in 
a  manner  most  grateful  to  them,  and  at  a  small  ex- 
pense to  the  nation:  secondly,  to  fortify  the  power  and 

VOL,.  II.  11 


122  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION1. 

to  secure  the  stability  of  regal  government,  by  an  or- 
der  of  men  naturally  allied  to  its  interests:  and,  third- 
ly, to  answer  a  purpose  which,  though  of  superior  im- 
portance to  the  other  two,  does  not  occur  so  readily 
to  our  observation;  namely,  to  stem  the  progress  of 
popular  fury.  Large  bodies  of  men  are  subject  to 
Sudden  frenzies.  Opinions  are  sometimes  circulated 
amongst  a  multitude  without  proof  or  examination,  ac- 
quiring confidence  and  reputation,  merely  by  being  re- 
peated from  one  to  another;  and  passions  founded  upon 
these  opinions,  diffusing  themselves  with  a  rapidity 
which  can  neither  be  accounted  for  nor  resisted,  may 
agitate  a  country  with  the  most  violent  commotions. 
Now  the  only  way  to  stop  the  fermentation  is  to  divide 
the  mass;  that  is,  to  erect  different  orders  in  the  com- 
munity, with  separate  prejudices  and  interests.  And 
this  may  occasionally  become  the  use  of  an  hereditary 
nobility,  invested  with  a  share  of  legislation.  Averse 
to  those  prejudices  which  actuate  the  minds  of  the 
vulgar;  accustomed  to  contemn  the  clamour  of  the 
populace;  disdaining  to  receive  laws  and  opinions 
from  their  inferiors  in  rank;  they  will  oppose  resolu- 
tions which  are  founded  in  the  folly  and  violence  of 
the  lower  part  of  the  community.  Were  the  voice  of 
the  people  always  dictated  by  reflection;  did  every 
man,  or  even  one  man  in  a  hundred,  think  for  himself, 
or  actually  consider  the  measure  he  was  about  to  ap- 
prove or  censure;  or  even  were  the  common  people 
tolerably  steadfast  in  the  judgment  which  they  formed, 
I  should  hold  the  interference  of  a  superior  order  not 
only  superfluous,  but  wrong;  for  when  every  thing  is 
allowed  to  difference  of  rank  and  education,  which  the 
actual  state  of  these  advant acres  deserves,  that,  after 
all,  is  most  likely  to  be  njjht  and  expedient,  which 
•appears  to  be  so  to  the  separate  judgment,  and  decision 
of  a  great  majority  of  the  nation;  at  least,  that  in 
general,  is  right  for  them,  which  is  agreeable  to  their 
fixed  opinions  and  desires.  But  when  we  observe 
what  is  urged  as  the  public  opinion,  to  be,  in  truth, 
the  opinion  only,  or  perhaps  the  feigned  profession,  of 
a  few  crafty  leaders;  that  the  numbers  who  join  in  the 
cry  serve  only  to  swell  and  multiply  the  sound,  with- 


BRITISH    CONSTITUTION.  123 

out  any  accession  of  judgment,  or  exercise  of  under- 
standing; and  that  oftentimes  the  wisest  counsels  have 
been  thus  overborne  by  tumult  and  uproar: — we  may 
conceive  occasions  to  arise,  in  which  the  common- 
wealth may  be  saved  by  the  reluctance  of  the  nobility 
to  adopt  the  caprices,  or  to  yield  to  the  vehemence,  of 
the  common  people.  In  expecting  this  advantage  from 
an  order  of  nobles,  we  do  not  suppose  the  nobility  to 
be  more  unprejudiced  than  others  :  we  only  suppose 
that  their  prejudices  will  be  different  from,  and  may 
occasionally  counteract,  those  of  others. 

If  the  personal  privileges  of  the  peerage,  which  are 
usually  so  many  injuries  to  the  rest  of  the  community, 
be  restrained,  I  see  little  inconveniency  to  the  increase 
of  its  number;  for  it  is  only  dividing  the  same  quan- 
tity of  power  amongst  more  hands,  which  is  rather 
favourable  to  public  freedom  than  otherwise 

The  admission  of  a  small  number  of  ecclesiastics 
into  the  House  of  Lords  is  but  an  equitable  compen- 
sation to  the  clergy  for  the  exclusion  of  their  order 
from  the  House  of  Commons.  They  are  a  set  of  men 
considerable  by  their  number  and  property,  as  well  as 
by  their  influence,  and  the  duties  of  their  station  ;  yet, 
whilst  every  other  profession  has  those  amongst  the 
national  representatives,  who.  being  conversant  in  the 
same  occupation,  are  able  to  state,  and  naturally  dis- 
posed to  support,  the  rights  arid  interests  of  the  class 
and  calling  to  which  they  belong,  the  clergy  alone 
are  deprived  of  this  advantage ;  which  hardship  is 
made  up  to  them  by  introducing  the  prelacy  into  par- 
liament: and  if  bishops,  from  gratitude  or  expectation, 
be  more  obsequious  to  the  will  of  the  crown  than  those 
who  possess  great  temporal  inheritances,  they  are 
properly  inserted  into  that  part  of  the  constitution, 
from  which  much  or  frequent  resistance  to  the  mea- 
sures of  government  is  not  expected. 

I  acknowledge,  that  I  perceive  no  sufficient  reason 
for  exempting  the  persons  of  members  of  either  house 
of  parliament  from  arrest  for  debt.  The  counsels  or 
suffrage  of  a  single  senator,  especially  of  one  who  in 
the  management  of  his  own  affairs  may  justly  be  sus- 
pected of  a  want  of  prudence  or  honesty,  can  seldom 


124  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION. 

be  so  necessary  to  those  of  the  public  as  to  justify  a 
departure  from  that  wholesome  policy  by  which  the 
laws  of  a  commercial  state  punish  and  stigmatize  in- 
solvency. But,  whatever  reason  may  be  pleaded  for 
their  personal  immunity,  when  this  privilege  of  par- 
liament is  extended  to  domestics  and  retainers,  or  when 
it  is  permitted  to  impede  or  delay  the  course  of  judi- 
cial proceedings,  it  becomes  an  absurd  sacrifice  of 
equal  justice  to  imaginary  dignity. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  British  constitution  so  re- 
remarkable  as  the  irregularity  of  the  popular  represen- 
tation. The  House  of  Commons  consists  of  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty-eight  members,  of  whom  two  hundred 
are  elected  by  seven  thousand  constituents;  so  that  a 
majority  of  these  seven  thousand,  without  any  reason- 
able title  to  superior  weight  or  influence  in  the  state, 
may,  under  certain  circumstances,  decide  a  question 
against  the  opinion  of  as  many  millions.  Or,  to  place 
the  same  object  in  another  point  of  view:  If  my  estate 
be  situated  in  one  county  of  the  kingdom,  I  possess 
the  ten-thousandth  part  of  a  single  representative;  if 
in  another,  the  thousandth;  if  in  a  particular  district, 
I  may  be  one  in  twenty  who  choose  two  representa- 
tives; if  in  a  still  more  favoured  spot,  I  may  enjoy  the 
right  of  appointing  two  myself.  If  I  have  been  born, 
or  dwell,  or  have  served  an  apprenticeship,  in  one 
town,  I  am  represented  in  the  national  assembly  by 
two  deputies,  in  the  choice  of  whom  I  exercise  an  ac- 
tual and  sensible  share  of  power:  if  accident  has 
thrown  my  birth,  or  habitation,  or  service,  into  another 
town,  I  have  no  representative  at  all,  nor  more  power 
or  concern  in  the  election  of  those  who  make  the  laws 
by  which  I  am  governed,  than  if  I  was  a  subject  of 
the  Grand  Signior: — and  this  partiality  subsists  with- 
out any  pretence  whatever  of  merit  or  of  propriety, 
to  justify  the  preference  of  one  place  to  another.  Or, 
thirdly,  to  describe  the  state  of  national  representa- 
tion as  it  exists  in  reality,  it  may  be  affirmed,  I  believe, 
with  truth,  that  about  one  half  of  the  House  of 
Commons  obtain  their  seats  in  that  assembly  by  the 
election  of  the  people,  the  other  half  by  purchase, 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION".  125 

or  by  the  nomination  of  single  proprietors  of  great 
estates. 

This  is  a  flagrant  incongruity  in  the  constitution; 
but  it  is  one  of  those  objections  which  strike  most 
forcibly  at  first  sight.  The  effect  of  all  reasoning 
upon  the  subject  is  to  diminish  the  first  impression; 
on  which  account  it  deserves  the  more  attentive  exa- 
mination, that  we  may  be  assured,  before  we  adventure 
upon  a  reformation,  that  the  magnitude  of  the  evil 
justifies  the  danger  of  the  experiment.  In  a  few  re- 
marks that  follow,  we  would  be  understood,  in  the 
first  place,  to  decline  all  conference  with  those  who 
wish  to  alter  the  form  of  government  of  these  king- 
doms. The  reformers  with  whom  we  have  to  do  are 
they  who,  whilst  they  change  this  part  of  the  system, 
would  retain  the  rest.  If  any  Englishman  expect  more 
happiness  to  his  country  under  a  republic,  he  may 
very  consistently  recommend  a  new-modelling  of  elec- 
tions to  parliament;  because,  if  the  King  and  House 
of  Lords  were  laid  aside,  the  present  disproportionate 
representation  would  produce  nothing  but  a  confused 
and  ill  digested  oligarchy.  In  like  manner,  we  wave 
a  controversy  with  those  writers  who  insist  upon  re- 
presentation as  a  natural  right:*  we  consider  it  so 
far  only  as  a  right  at  all,  as  it  conduces  to  public 
utility;  that  is,  as  it  contributes  to  the  establishment 
of  good  laws,  or  as  it  secures  to  the  people  the  just 
administration  of  these  laws.  These  effects  depend 
upon  the  disposition  and  abilities  of  the  national 
counsellors.  Wherefore,  if  men  the  most  likely 
by  their  qualifications  to  know  and  to  promote  the 
public  interest  be  actually  returned  to  parliament,  it 
signifies  little  who  return  them.  If  the  properest  per- 
sons be  elected,  what  matters  it  by  whom  they  are 

*  If  this  right  be  natural,  no  doubt  it  must  be  equal ;  and 
the  right,  we  may  add,  of  one  sex,  as  well  as  of  the  other. 
Whereas  every  plan  of  representation  that  we  have  heard  of 
begins  by  excluding  the  votes  of -women  ;  thus  cutting  off, 
at  a  single  stroke,  one  half  of  the  public  from  a  right  which  is 
asserted  to  be  inherent  in  all ;  a  right  too,  as  some  represent 
it,  not  only  universal,  but  unalienable,  and  indefeasible,  and 
imprescriptible. 

VOL.   II.  11   * 


126  BRITISH   CONSTITUTION. 

elected  ?  At  least,  no  prudent  statesman  would  sub- 
vert long-established  or  even  settled  rules  of  represen- 
tation, without  a  prospect  of  procuring  wiser  or  better 
representatives.  This  then  being  well  observed,  let 
us,  before  we  seek  to  obtain  any  thing  more,  consider 
duly  what  we  already  have.  We  have  a  House  of  Com- 
mons composed  of  five  hundred  and  fifty-eight  mem- 
bers, in  which  number  are  found  the  most  considerable 
landholders  and  merchants  of  the  kingdom;  the  heads 
of  the  army,  the  navy,  and  the  law;  the  occupiers  of 
great  offices  in  the  state;  together  with  many  private 
individuals,  eminent  by  their  knowledge,  eloquence, 
or  activity.  Now,  if  the  country  be  not  safe  in  such 
hands,  in  whose  may  it  confide  its  interests  ?  If  such 
a  number  of  such  men  be  liable  to  the  influence  of 
corrupt  motives,  what  assembly  of  men  will  be  secure 
from  the  same  danger?  Does  any  new  scheme  of 
representation  promise  to  collect  together  more  wis- 
dom, or  to  produce  firmer  integrity  ?  In  this  view  of 
the  subject,  and  attending  not  to  ideas  of  order  and 
proportion  (of  which  many  minds  are  much  enamour- 
ed,) but  to  effects  alone,  we  may  discover  just  excuses 
for  those  parts  of  the  present  representation  which  ap- 
pear to  a  hasty  observer  most  exceptionable  and  ab- 
surd. It  should  be  remembered,  as  a  maxim  extremely 
applicable  to  this  subject,  that  no  order  or  assembly 
of  men  whatever  can  long  maintain  their  place  and 
authority  in  a  mixed  government,  of  which  the  mem- 
bers do  not  individually  possess  a  respectable  share  of 
personal  importance.  Now,  whatever  may  be  the  de- 
lects of  the  present  arrangement,  it  infallibly  secures 
a  great  weight  of  property  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
by  rendering  many  seats  in  that  house  accessible  to  men 
of  large  fortunes,  and  to  such  mei  alone.  By  which 
means,  those  characters  are  engaged  in  the  defence  of 
the  separate  rights  and  interests  of  this  branch  of  the 
legislature,  that  are  best  able  to  support  its  claims. 
The  constitution  of  most  of  the  small  boroughs,  espe- 
cially the  burgage  tenure,  contributes,  though  unde- 
signedly  to  the  same  effect:  for  the  appointment  of 
the  representatives  we  find  commonly  annexed  to  cer- 
tain great  inheritances.  Elections  purely  popular  are 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION".  127 

m  this  respect  uncertain:  in  times  of  tranquillity,  the 
natural  ascendency  of  wealth  will  prevail;  but  when 
the  minds  of  men  are  inflamed  by  political  dissensions, 
this  influence  often  yields  to  more  impetuous  motives. 
The  variety  of  tenures  and  qualifications,  upon  which 
the  right  of  voting  is  founded,  appears  to  me  a  recom- 
mendation of  the  mode  which  now  subsists,  as  it  tends 
to  introduce  into  parliament  a  corresponding  mixture 
of  characters  and  professions.  It  has  been  long  ob- 
served, that  conspicuous  abilities  are  most  frequently 
found  with  the  representatives  of  small  boroughs.  And 
this  is  nothing  more  than  what  the  laws  of  human 
conduct  might  teach  us  to  expect:  When  such  bo- 
roughs are  set  to  sale,  those  men  are  likely  to  become 
purchasers,  who  are  enabled  by  their  talents  to  make 
the  best  of  their  bargain:  when  a  seat  is  not  sold,  but 
given  by  the  opulent  proprietor  of  a  burgage  tenure, 
the  patron  finds  his  own  interest  consulted,  by  the 
reputation  and  abilities  of  the  member  whom  he  no- 
minates. If  certain  of  the  nobility  hold  the  appoint- 
ment of  some  part  of  the  House  of  Commons,  it  serves 
to  maintain  that  alliance  between  the  two  branches  of 
the  legislature  which  no  good  citizen  would  wish  to 
see  dissevered:  it  helps  to  keep  the  government  of  the 
country  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  which  it  would 
not  perhaps  long  continue  to  reside,  if  so  powerful 
and  wealthy  a  part  of  the  nation  as  the  peerage  com- 
pose, were  excluded  from  all  share  and  interest  in  its 
constitution.  If  there  be  a  few  boroughs  so  circum- 
stanced as  to  lie  at  the  disposal  of  the  crown,  whilst 
the  number  of  such  is  known,  and  small,  they  may 
be  tolerated  with  little  danger.  For  where  would  bo 
the  impropriety  or  the  inconveniency,  if  the  king  at 
once  should  nominate  a  limited  number  of  his  servants 
to  seats  in  parliament;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  if 
seats  in  parliament  were  annexed  to  the  possession  of 
certain  of  the  most  efficient  and  responsible  offices  in 
the  state  ?  The  present  representation,  after  all  these 
deductions,  and  under  the  confusion  in  which  it  con- 
fessedly lies,  is  still  in  such  a  degree  popular;  or  ra- 
ther, the  representatives  are  so  connected  with  the 
mass  of  the  community  by  a  society  of  interests  and 


128  BRITISH   CONSTITUTION. 

passions,  that  the  will  of  the  people,  when  it  is  deter- 
mined, permanent,  and  general,  almost  always  at 
length  prevails. 

Upon  the  whole,  in  the  several  plans  which  have 
been  suggested,  of  an  equal  or  a  reformed  representa- 
tion, it  will  be  difficult  to  discover  any  proposal  that 
has  a  tendency  to  throw  more  of  the  business  of  the 
nation  into  the  House  of  Commons,  or  to  collect  a  set 
of  men  more  fit  to  transact  that  business,  or  in  gene- 
ral more  interested  in  the  national  happiness  and  pros- 
perity. One  consequence,  however,  may  be  expected 
from  these  projects,  namely,  •'  less  flexibility  to  the 
influence  of  the  crown."  And  since  the  diminution 
of  this  influence  is  the  declared  and  perhaps  the  sole 
design  of  the  various  schemes  that  have  been  pro- 
duced, whether  for  regulating  the  elections,  contract- 
ing the  duration,  or  for  purifying  the  constitution  of 
parliament  by  the  exclusion  of  placemen  and  pension- 
ers; it  is  obvious  to  remark,  that  the  more  apt  and  na- 
tural, as  well  as  the  more  safe  and  quiet  way  of  attain- 
ing the  same  end,  would  be  by  a  direct  reduction  of 
the  patronage  of  the  crown,  which  might  be  effected 
to  a  certain  extent  without  hazarding  further  conse- 
quences. Superfluous  and  exorbitant  emoluments  of 
office  may  not  only  be  suppressed  for  the  present,  but 
provisions  of  law  be  devised,  which  should  for  the 
future  restrain  within  certain  limits  the  number  and 
value  of  the  offices  in  the  donation  of  the  king. 

But  whilst  we  dispute  concerning  different  schemes 
of  reformation,  all  directed  to  the  same  end,  a  previ- 
ous doubt  occurs  in  the  debate,  whether  the  end  itself 
be  good,  or  safe; — whether  the  influence  so  loudly 
complained  of  can  be  destroyed,  or  even  much  dimi- 
nished, without  danger  to  the  state.  Whilst  the  zeal 
of  some  men  behold  this  influence  with  a  jealousy 
which  nothing  but  its  entire  abolition  can  appease, 
many  wise  and  virtuous  politicians  deem  a  consider- 
able portion  of  it  to  be  as  necessary  a  part  of  the 
British  constitution,  as  any  other  ingredient  in  the 
composition; — to  be  that,  indeed,  which  gives  cohe- 
sion and  solidity  to  the  whole.  Were  the  measures 
pf  government,  say  they,  opposed  from  nothing  bul 


BRITISH  CONSTITUTION.  129 

principle,  government  ought  to  have  nothing  but  the 
rectitude  of  its  measures  to  support  them:  but  since 
opposition  springs  from  other  motives,  government 
must  possess  an  influence  to  counteract  these  motives; 
to  produce,  not  a  bias  of  the  passions,  but  a  neutra- 
lity;— it  must  have  some  weight  to  cast  into  the  scale, 
to  set  the  balance  even.  It  is  the  nature  of  power 
always  to  press  upon  the  boundaries  which  confine  it. 
Licentiousness,  faction,  envy,  impatience  of  control,  or 
inferiority;  the  secret  pleasure  of  mortifying  the 
great,  or  the  hope  of  dispossessing  them;  a  constant 
willingness  to  question  and  thwart  whatever  is  dictated 
or  even  proposed  by  another;  a  disposition  common 
to  all  bodies  of  men,  to  extend  the  claims  and  autho- 
rity of  their  orders;  above  all,  that  love  of  power,  and 
of  showing  it,  which  resides  more  or  less  in  every 
human  breast,  and  which,  in  popular  assemblies,  is 
inflamed,  like  every  other  passion,  by  communication 
and  encouragement:  these  motives,  added  to  private 
designs  and  resentments,  cherished  also  by  popular 
acclamation,  and  operating  upon  the  great  share  of 
power  already  possessed  by  the  House  of  Commons, 
might  induce  a  majority,  or  at  least  a  large  party  of 
men  in  that  assembly,  to  unite  in  endeavouring  to 
draw  to  themselves  the  whole  government  of  the 
state;  or,  at  least,  so  to  obstruct  the  conduct  of  pub- 
lic affairs,  by  a  wanton  and  perverse  opposition,  as  to 
render  it  impossible  for  the  wisest  statesman  to  carry 
forwards  the  business  of  the  nation  with  success  or 
satisfaction. 

Some  passages  of  our  national  history  afford  grounds 
for  these  apprehensions. — Before  the  accession  of 
James  the  First,  or  at  least  during  the  reigns  of  his 
three  immediate  predecessors,  the  government  of 
England  was  a  government  by  force;  that  is,  the 
king  carried  his  measures  in  parliament  by  intimida- 
tion. A  sense  of  personal  danger  kept  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  in  subjection.  A  conjunc- 
tion of  fortunate  causes  delivered,  at  least,  the  par- 
liament and  nation  from  slavery.  That  overbearing 
system  which  had  declined  in  the  hands  of  James 
expired  early  in  the  reign  of  his  son.  After  the  Res- 


130  BRITISH   CONSTITUTION. 

toration,  there  succeeded  in  its  place,  and,  since  tha 
Revolution,  has  been  methodically  pursued,  the  more 
successful  expedient  of  influence.  Now  we  remem- 
ber what  passed  between  the  loss  of  terror  and  the 
establishment  of  influence.  The  transactions  of  that 
interval,  whatever  we  may  think  of  their  occasion  or 
effect,  no  friend  of  regal  government  would  wish  to 
see  revived. — But  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom  afford 
a  more  recent  attestation  to  the  same  doctrine.  In 
the  British  colonies  of  North  America,  the  late  assem- 
blies possessed  much  of  the  power  and  constitution  of 
our  House  of  Commons.  The  king  and  government 
of  Great  Britain  held  no  patronage  in  the  country 
which  could  create  attachment  and  influence  suffi- 
cient to  counteract  that  restless  arrogating  spirit, 
which,  in  popular  assemblies,  when  left  to  itself,  will 
never  brook  an  authority  that  checks  and  interferes 
with  its  own.  To  this  cause,  excited  perhaps  by  some 
unseasonable  provocations,  we  may  attribute,  as  1<> 
their  true  and  proper  original  (we  will  not  say  the 
misfortunes,  but,)  the  changes  that  have  taken  place 
in  the  British  empire.  The  admonition  which  such  ex- 
amples suggest  will  have  its  weight  with  those  who 
are  content  with  the  general  frame  of  the  English 
constitution,  and  who  consider  stability  amongst  the 
first  perfections  of  any  government. 

We  protest,  however,  against  any  construction,  by 
which  what  is  here  said  shall  be  attempted  to  be  ap- 
plied to  the  justification  of  bribery,  or  of  any  clandes- 
tine reward  or  solicitation  whatever.  The  very  secrecy 
of  such  negotiations  confesses  or  begets  a  conscious- 
ness of  guilt;  which,  when  the  mind  is  once  taught 
to  endure  without  uneasiness,  the  character  is  pre- 
pared for  every  compliance;  and  there  is  the  greater 
danger  in  these  corrupt  practices,  as  the  extent  of  their 
operation  is  unlimited  and  unknown.  Our  apology 
relates  solely  to  that  influence  which  results  from  the 
acceptance  of  expectation  of  public  preferments.  Nor 
does  the  influence  which  we  defend  require  any  sacri- 
fice of  personal  probity.  In  political,  above  all  other 
subjects,  the  arguments,  or  rather  the  conjectures,  on 
each  side  of  the  question,  are  often  so  equally  poised, 


BRITISH   CONSTITU  T1ON.  131 

that  the  wisest  judgments  may  be  held  in  suspense: 
these  I  call  subjects  of  indifference.  But  again; 
when  the  subject  is  not  indifferent  in  itself,  it  will 
appear  such  to  a  great  part  ol'  those  to  whom  it  is 
proposed,  for  want  of  information,  or  reflection,  or 
experience,  or  of  capacity  to  collect  and  weigh  the 
reasons  by  which  either  side  is  "supported.  These 
are  subjects  of  apparent  indifference.  This  indiffer- 
ence occurs  still  more  frequently  in  personal  contests; 
in  which  we  do  not  often  discover  any  reason  of  pub- 
lic utility  for  the  preference  of  one  competitor  to  ano- 
ther. These  cases  compose  the  province  of  influence: 
that  is,  the  decision  in  these  cases  will  inevitably  be 
determined  by  influence  of  some  sort  or  other.  The 
only  doubt  is,  what  influence  shall  be  admitted.  If 
you  remove  the  influence  of  the  crown,  it  is  only  to 
make  way  for  influence  from  a  different  quarter.  If 
motives  of  expectation  and  gratitude  be  withdrawn, 
other  motives  will  succeed  in  their  place,  acting  pro- 
bably in  an  opposite  direction,  but  equally  irrel.itive 
and  external  to  the  proper  merits  of  the  question. 
There  exist,  as  we  have  seen,  passions  in  the  human 
heart,  which  will  always  make  a  strong  party  against 
the  executive  power  of  a  mixed  government.  Accord- 
ing as  the  disposition  of  parliament  is  friendly  or  ad- 
verse to  the  recommendation  of  the  crown  in  matters 
which  are  really  or  apparently  indifferent,  as  indiffer- 
ence hath  been  now  explained,  the  business  of  the 
empire  will  be  transacted  with  ease  and  convenience, 
or  embarrassed  with  endless  contention  and  difficulty. 
Nor  is  it  a  conclusion  founded  in  justice,  or  warranted 
by  experience,  that  because  men  are  induced  by  views 
of  interest  to  yield  their  consent  to  measures  concern- 
ing which  their  judgment  decides  nothing,  they  may 
be  brought  by  the  same  influence  to  act  in  deliberate 
opposition  to  knowledge  and  duty.  Whoever  reviews 
the  operations  of  government  in  this  country  since 
the  Revolution,  will  find  few  even  of  the  most  ques- 
tionable measures  of  administration,  about  which  the 
best  instructed  judgment  might  not  have  doubted  at 
the  time;  but  of  which  we  may  affirm  with  certainty, 
they  were  indifferent  to  the  greatest  part  of  those 


132  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE. 

who  concurred  in  them.  From  the  success,  or  the 
facility,  with  which  they  who  dealt  out  the  patronage 
of  the  crown  carried,  measures  like  these,  ought  we 
to  conclude  that  a  similar  application  of  honours  and 
emoluments  would  procure  the  consent  of  parliaments 
to  counsels  evidently  detrimental  to  the  common  wel- 
fare ?  Is  there  not  on  the  contrary  more  reason  to 
fear,  that  the  prerogative,  if  deprived  of  influence, 
would  not  be  long  able  to  support  itself?  For  when 
we  reflect  upon  the  power  of  the  House  of  Commons 
to  extort  a  compliance  with  its  resolutions  from  the 
other  parts  of  the  legislature;  or  to  put  to  death  the 
constitution  by  a  refusal  of  the  annual  grants  of  money 
to  the  support  of  the  necessary  functions  of  govern- 
ment;— when  we  reflect  also  what  motives  there  are 
which,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  political  interests  and 
passions,  may  one  day  arm  and  point  this  power 
against  the  executive  magistrate; — when  we  attend  to 
these  considerations,  we  shall  be  led  perhaps  to  ac- 
knowledge, that  there  is  not  mere  of  paradox  than  of 
truth  in  that  important,  but  much  decried  apophthegm, 
"  that  an  independent  parliament  is  incompatible  with 
the  existence  of  the  monarchy." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OF  THE   ADMINISTRATION    OF  JUSTICE. 

THE  first  maxim  of  a  free  state  is,  that  the  laws  be 
made  by  one  set  of  men,  and  administered  by  ano- 
ther; in  other  words,  that  the  legislative  and  judicial 
characters  be  kept  separate.  When  these  offices  are 
united  in  the  same  person  or  assembly,  particular 
laws  are  made  for  particular  cases,  springing  often- 
times from  partial  motives,  and  directed  to  private 
ends:  whilst  they  are  kept  separate,  general  laws  are 
made  by  one  body  of  men,  without  foreseeing  whom 
they  may  affect;  and,  when  made,  must  be  applied 
by  the  oth*r  let.  thorn  effect  whom  they  will. 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE.  133 

For  the  sake  of  illustration  let  it  be  supposed,  in 
this  country,  either  that,  parliaments  being  laid  aside, 
the  courts  of  Westminster  Hall  made  their  own  laws; 
or  that  the  two  houses  of  parliament,  with  the  King 
at  their  head,  tried  and  decided  causes  at  their  bar: 
it  is  evident,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  decisions  of 
such  a  judicature  would  be  so  many  laws;  and,  in  the 
second  place,  that,  when  the  parties  and  the  interests 
to  be  affected  by  the  laws  were  known,  the  inclina- 
tions of  the  law  makers  would  inevitably  attach  on 
one  side  or  the  other;  and  that  where  there  were 
neither  any  fixed  rules  to  regulate  their  determinations, 
nor  any  superior  power  to  control  their  proceedings, 
these  inclinations  would  interfere  with  the  integrity  of 
public  justice.  The  consequence  of  which  must  be, 
that  the  subjects  of  such  a  constitution  would  live 
either  without  any  constant  laws,  that  is,  without  any 
known  preestablished  rules  of  adjudication  whatever; 
or  under  laws  made  for  particular  persons,  and  par- 
taking of  the  contradictions  and  iniquity  of  the  motives 
to  which  they  owed  their  origin. 

Which  dangers,  by  the  division  of  the  legislative 
and  judicial  functions,  are  in  this  country  effectually 
provided  against.  Parliament  knows  not  the  indivi- 
duals upon  whom  its  acts  will  operate;  it  has  no  cases 
or  parties  before  it;  no  private  designs  to  serve:  con- 
sequently, its  resolutions  will  be  suggested  by  the  con- 
sideration of  universal  effects  and  tendencies,  which 
always  produces  impartial,  and  commonly  advanta- 
geous regulations.  When  laws  are  made,  courts  of 
justice,  whatever  be  the  disposition  of  the  judges, 
must  abide  by  them;  for  the  legislative  being  neces- 
sarily the  supreme  power  of  the  state,  the  judicial  and 
every  other  power  is  accountable  to  that:  and  it  can- 
not be  doubted  that  the  persons  who  possess  the  sove- 
reign authority  of  government  will  be  tenacious  of  the 
laws  which  they  themselves  prescribe,  and  sufficiently 
jealous  of  the  assumption  of  dispensing  and  legislative 
power  by  any  others. 

This  fundamental  rule  of  civil  jurisprudence  is  vio- 
lated in  the  case  of  acts  of  attainder  or  confiscation, 
in  bills  of  pains  and  penalties,  and  in  all  ex  post  facto 

VOL.  II.  12 


134  ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE. 

laws  whatever,  in  which  parliament  cxeicises  the 
double  office  of  legislature  and  judge.  And  whoever 
either  understands  the  value  of  the  rule  itself,  or  col- 
lects the  history  of  those  instances  in  which  it  has 
been  invaded,  will  be  induced,  I  believe,  to  acknow- 
ledge, that  it  had  been  wiser  and  safer  never  to  have 
departed  from  it.  He  will  confess,  at  least,  that 
nothing  but  the  most  manifest  and  immediate  peril  of 
the  commonwealth  will  justify  a  repetition  of  these 
dangerous  examples.  If  the  laws  in  being  do  not 
punish  an  offender,  let  him  go  unpunished;  let  the 
legislature,  admonished  of  the  defect  of  the  laws,  pro- 
vide against  the  commission  of  future  crimes  of  the 
same  sort.  The  escape  of  one  delinquent  can  never 
produce  so  much  harm  to  the  community  as  may 
arise  from  the  infraction  of  a  rule  upon  which  the 
purity  of  public  justice,  and  the  existence  of  civil 
liberty,  essentially  depend. 

The  next  security  for  the  impartial  administration 
of  justice,  especially  in  decisions  to  which  govern- 
ment is  a  party,  is  the  independency  of  the  judges. 
As  protection  against  every  illegal  attack  upon  the 
rights  of  the  subject  by  the  servants  of  the  crown  is  to 
be  sought  for  from  these  tribunals,  the  judges  of  the 
land  become  not  unfrequently  the  arbitrators  between 
the  king  and  the  people;  on  which  account  they  ought 
to  be  independent  of  either;  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  equally  dependent  upon  both:  that  is,  if  they 
be  appointed  by  the  one,  they  should  be  removable 
only  by  the  other.  This  was  the  policy  which  dic- 
tated that  memorable  improvement  in  our  constitution, 
by  which  the  judges,  who  before  the  Revolution  held 
their  offices  during  the  pleasure  of  the  king,  can  now 
be  deprived  of  them  only  by  an  address  from  both 
houses  of  parliament;  as  the  most  regular,  solemn, 
and  authentic  way,  by  which  the  dissatisfaction  of  the 
people  can  be  expressed.  To  make  this  independency 
of  the  judges  complete,  the  public  salaries  of  their 
office  ought  not  only  to  be  certain  both  in  amount  and 
continuance,  but  so  liberal  as  to  secure  their  integrity 
from  the  temptation  of  secret  bribes;  which  liberality 
will  answer  also  the  further  purpose  of  preserving 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE.  135 

their  jurisdiction  from  contempt,  and  their  characters 
from  suspicion;  as  well  as  of  rendering  the  office 
worthy  of  the  ambition  of  men  of  eminence  in  their 
profession. 

A  third  precaution  to  be  observed  in  the  formation 
of  courts  of  justice  is,  that  the  number  of  the  judges 
be  small.  For,  beside  that  the  violence  and  tumult 
inseparable  from  large  assemblies  are  inconsistent  with 
the  patience,  method,  and  attention  requisite  in  judi- 
cial investigations;  beside  that  all  passions  and  pre- 
judices act  with  augmented  force  upon  a  collected 
multitude;  beside  these  objections,  judges,  when  they 
are  numerous,  divide  the  shame  of  an  unjust  deter- 
mination; they  shelter  themselves  under  one  another's 
example;  each  man  thinks  his  own  character  hid  in 
the  crowd:  for  which  reason  the  judges  ought  always 
to  be  so  few  as  that  the  conduct  of  each  may  be  con- 
spicuous to  public  observation;  that  each  may  be 
responsible  in  his  separate  and  particular  reputation 
for  the  decisions  in  which  he  concurs.  The  truth  of 
the  above  remark  has  been  exemplified  in  this  coun- 
try, in  the  effects  of  that  wise  regulation  which  trans- 
ferred the  trial  of  parliamentary  elections  from  the 
House  of  Commons  at  large  to  a  select  Committee  of 
that  house,  composed  of  thirteen  members.  This 
alteration,  simply  by  reducing  the  number  of  the 
judges,  and,  in  consequence  of  that  reduction,  ex- 
posing the  judicial  conduct  of  each  to  public  animad- 
version, has  given  to  a  judicature,  which  had  been 
long  swayed  by  interest  and  solicitation,  the  solemnity 
and  virtue  of  the  most  upright  tribunals. — I  should 
prefer  an  even  to  an  odd  number  of  judges,  and  four 
to  almost  any  other  number:  for  in  this  number,  beside 
that  it  sufficiently  consults  the  idea  of  separate  re- 
sponsibility, nothing  can  be  decided  but  by  a  majority 
of  three  to  one:  and  when  we  consider  that  every  de- 
cision establishes,  a  perpetual  precedent,  we  shall 
allow  that  it  ought  to  proceed  from  an  authority  not 
less  than  this.  If  the  court  be  equally  dividf  d,  nothing 
is  done;  things  remain  as  they  were;  with  some  in- 
conveniency,  indeed,  to  the  parties,  but  without  the 
danger  to  the  public  of  a  hasty  precedent. 


136  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE. 

A  fourth  requisite  in  the  constitution  of  a  court  of 
justice,  and  equivalent  to  many  checks  upon  the  dis- 
cretion of  judges,  is,  that  its  proceedings  he  carried 
un  in  public,  apertis  foribus;  not  only  before  a  pro- 
miscuous concourse  of  by-standers,  but  in  the  audi- 
ence of  the  whole  profession  of  the  law.  The  opinion 
of  the  bar  concerning  what  passes  will  be  impartial; 
and  will  commonly  guide  that  of  the  public.  The 
most  corrupt  judge  will  fear  to  indulge  his  dishonest 
wishes  in  the  presence  of  such  an  assembly:  he  must 
encounter,  what  few  can  support,  the  censure  of  his 
equals  and  companions,  together  with  the  indignation 
and  reproaches  of  his  country. 

Something  is  also  gained  to  the  public  by  appoint- 
ing two  or  three  courts  of  concurrent  jurisdiction,  that 
it  may  remain  in  the  option  of  the  suitor  to  which  he 
will  resort.  By  this  means,  a  tribunal  which  may 
happen  to  be  occupied  by  ignorant  or  suspected  judges, 
will  be  deserted  for  others  that  possess  more  of  the 
confidence  of  the  nation. 

But,  lastly,  if  several  courts,  coordinate  to  and  in- 
dependent of  each  other,  subsist  together  in  the  coun- 
try, it  seems  necessary  that  the  appeals  from  all  of 
them  should  meet  and  terminate  in  the  same  judica- 
ture; in  order  that  one  supreme  tribunal,  by  whose 
final  sentence  all  others  are  bound  and  concluded, 
may  superintend  and  preside  over  the  rest.  This 
constitution  is  necessary  for  two  purposes; — to  pre- 
serve a  uniformity  in  the  decisions  of  inferior  courts, 
and  to  maintain  to  each  the  proper  limits  of  its  juris- 
diction. Without  a  common  superior,  different  courts 
might  establish  contradictory  rules  of  adjudication, 
and  the  contradiction  be  final  and  without  remedy;  the 
same  question  might  receive  opposite  determinations, 
according  as  it  was  brought  before  one  court  or  ano- 
ther and  the  determination  in  each  be  ultimate  and 
irreversible.  A  common  appellant  jurisdiction  pre- 
vents or  puts  an  end  to  this  confusion.  For  when  the 
judgments  upon  appeals  are  consistent  (which  may 
be  expected,  whilst  it  is  the  same  court  which  is  at 
last  resorted  to,)  the  different  courts  from  which  the 
appeals  are  brought  will  be  reduced  to  a  like  consis- 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE.  137 

tency  with  one  another.  Moreover,  if  questions  arise 
between  courts  independent  of  each  other,  concerning 
the  extent  and  boundaries  of  their  respective  jurisdic- 
tion, as  each  will  be  desirous  of  enlarging  its  own, 
an  authority  which  both  acknowledge  can  alone  adjust 
the  controversy.  Such  a  power,  therefore,  must  reside 
somewhere,  lest  the  rights  and  repose  of  the  country 
be  distracted  by  the  endless  opposition  and  mutual 
encroachments  of  its  courts  of  justice. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  judicature:  the  one,  where 
the  office  of  the  judge  is  permanent  in  the  same  per- 
son, and  consequently  where  the  judge  is  appointed 
and  known  long  before  the  trial;  the  other,  where 
the  judge  is  determined  by  lot  at  the  time  of  the  trial, 
and  for  that  turn  only.  The  one  may  be  called  a 
fixed,  the  other  a  casual  judicature.  From  the  for- 
mer may  be  expected  those  qualifications  which  are 
preferred  and  sought  for  in  the  choice  of  judges,  and 
that  knowledge  and  readiness  which  result  from  ex- 
perience in  the  office.  But  then,  as  the  judge  is 
knawn  beforehand,  he  is  accessible  to  the  parties; 
there  exists  a  possibility  of  secret  management  and 
undue  practices:  or,  in  contests  between  the  crown 
and  the  subject,  the  judge  appointed  by  the  crown 
may  be  suspected  of  partiality  to  his  patron,  or  of 
entertaining  inclinations  favourable  to  the  authority 
from  which  he  derives  his  own.  The  advantage  at- 
tending the  second  kind  of  judicature  is  indiflferency; 
the  defect,  the  want  of  that  legal  science  which  pro- 
duces uniformity  and  justice  in  legal  decisions.  The 
construction  of  English  courts  of  law,  in  which  causes 
are  tried  by  a  jury,  with  the  assistance  of  a  judge, 
combines  the  two  species  with  peculiar  success.  This 
admirable  contrivance  unites  the  wisdom  of  a  fixed 
with  the  integrity  of  a  casual  judicature;  and  avoids, 
in  a  great  measure,  the  inconveniencies  of  both.  The 
judge  imparts  to  the  jury  the  benefit  of  his  erudition 
and  experience;  the  jury,  by  their  disinterestedness, 
check  any  corrupt  partialities  which  previous  applica- 
tion may  have  produced  in  the  judge.  If  the  deter- 
mination were  left  to  the  judge,  the  party  .night  suf- 
fer under  the  superior  interest  of  his  adversary:  if  it 

VOL.  ii.  12  * 


138  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE. 

were  left  to  an  uninstructed  jury,  his  rights  would  be 
in  still  greater  danger,  from  the  ignorance  of  those 
who  were  to  decide  upon  them.  The  present  wise 
admixture  of  chance  and  choice,  in  the  constitution  of 
the  court  in  which  his  cause  is  tried,  guards  him 
equally  against  the  fear  of  injury  from  either  of  these 
causes. 

In  proportion  to  the  acknowledged  excellency  of 
this  mode  of  trial,  every  deviation  from  it  ought  to  be 
watched  with  vigilance,  and  admitted  by  the  legisla- 
ture with  caution  and  reluctance.  Summary  convic- 
tions before  justices  of  the  peace,  especially  for  of- 
fences against  the  game  laws;  courts  of  conscience; 
extending  the  jurisdiction  of  courts  of  equity;  urging 
too  fur  the  distinction  between  questions  of  law  and 
matters  of  fact; — are  all  so  many  infringements  upon 
this  great  charter  of  public  safety. 

Nevertheless,  the  trial  by  jury  is  sometimes  found 
inadequate  to  the  administration  of  equal  justice. 
This  imperfection  takes  place  chiefly  in  disputes  in 
which  some  popular  passion  or  prejudice  intervenes; 
as  where  a  particular  order  of  men  advance  claims 
upon  the  rest  of  the  community,  which  is  the  case  of 
the  clergy  contending  for  tithes;  or  where  an  order 
of  men  are  obnoxious  by  their  profession,  as  are 
officers  of  the  revenue,  bailiffs,  bailiffs'  followers,  and 
other  low  ministers  of  the  law;  or  where  one  of  the 
parties  has  an  interest  in  corrxnon  with  the  general 
interest  of  the  jurors,  and  that  of  the  other  is  op- 
posed to  it,  as  in  contests  between  landlords  and 
tenants,  between  lords  of  manors  and  the  holders  of 
estates  under  them;  or,  lastly,  where  the  minds  of 
men  are  inflamed  by  political  dissensions  or  religious 
hatred.  These  prejudices  act  most  powerfully  upon 
the  common  people;  of  which  order  juries  are  made 
up.  The  force  and  danger  of  them  are  also  increased 
by  the  very  circumstance  of  taking  juries  out  of  the 
country  in  which  the  subject  of  dispute  arises.  In 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  parties,  the  cause  is  often 
prejudged:  and  these  secret  decisions  of  the  mind 
proceed  commonly  more  upon  sentiments  of  favour  or 
hatred, — upon  some  opinion  concerning  the  sect,  fa- 


ADMINISTRATION    OF    JUSTICE.  139 

mily,  profession,  character,  connexions,  or  circum- 
stances of  the  parties — than  upon  any  knowledge  or 
discussion  of  the  proper  merits  of  the  question.  More 
exact  justice  would,  in  many  instances,  be  rendered 
to  the  suitors,  if  the  determination  were  left  entirely 
to  the  judges;  provided  we  could  depend  upon  the 
same  purity  of  conduct,  when  the  power  of  these  ma- 
gistrates was  enlarged,  which  they  have  long  mani- 
fested in  the  exercise  of  a  mixed  and  restrained  autho- 
rity. But  this  is  an  experiment  too  big  with  public 
danger  to  be  hazarded.  The  effects,  however,  of  some 
local  prejudices,  might  be  safely  obviated  by  a  law 
empowering  the  court  in  which  the  action  is  brought 
to  send  the  cause  to  trial  in  a  distant  country;  the  ex- 
penses attending  the  change  of  place  always  falling 
upon  the  party  who  applied  for  it. 

There  is  a  second  division  of  courts  of  justice,  which 
presents  a  new  alternative  of  difficulties.  Either  one, 
two,  or  a  few  sovereign  courts  may  be  erected  in  the 
metropolis,  for  the  whole  kingdom  to  resort  to;  or 
courts  of  local  jurisdiction  may  be  fixed  in  various 
provinces  and  districts  of  the  empire.  Great,  though 
opposite,  inconveniences  attend  each  arrangement. 
If  the  court  be  remote  and  solemn,  it  becomes,  by 
these  very  qualities,  expensive  and  dilatory:  the  ex- 
pense is  unavoidably  increased  when  witnesses,  par- 
ties, and  agents  must  be  brought  to  attend  from  dis- 
tant parts  of  the  country:  and,  where  the  whole  judi- 
cial business  of  a  large  nation  is  collected  in  a  few 
superior  tribunals,  it  will  be  found  impossible,  even 
if  the  prolixity  of  forms  which  retards  the  progress  of 
causes  were  removed,  to  give  a  prompt  hearing  to 
every  complaint,  or  an  immediate  answer  to  any.  On 
the  other  hand,  if,  to  remedy  these  evils,  and  to  ren- 
der the  administration  of  justice  cheap  and  speedy, 
domestic  and  summary  tribunals  be  erected  in  each 
neighbourhood,  the  advantage  of  such  courts  will  be 
accompanied  with  all  the  dangers  of  ignorance  and 
partiality,  and  with  the  certain  mischief  of  confusion 
and  contrariety  in  their  decisions.  The  law  of  Eng- 
land, by  its  circuit,  or  itinerary  courts,  contains  a  pro- 
vision for  the  distribution  of  private  justice,  in  a  great 


i; 


140  ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE. 

measure  relieved  from  both  these  objections.  As  the 
presiding  magistrate  comes  into  the  country  a  stranger 
to  its  prejudices,  rivalships,  and  connexions,  he  brings 
with  him  none  of  those  attachments  and  regards 
which  are  so  apt  to  pervert  the  courts  of  justice  when 
the  parties  and  the  judges  inhabit  the  same  neighbour- 
hood. Again;  As  this  magistrate  is  usually  one  of  the 
judges  of  the  supreme  tribunals  of  the  kingdom,  and 
has  passed  his  life  in  the  study  and  administration  of 
the  laws,  he  possesses,  it  may  be  presumed,  those  pro- 
fessional qualifications  which  befit  the  dignity  and  im- 
portance of  his  station.  Lastly,  As  both  he  and  the 
advocates  who  accompany  him  in  his  circuit  are  em- 
ployed in  the  business  of  those  superior  courts  (to 
which  also  their  proceedings  are  amenable,)  they  will 
naturally  conduct  themselves  by  the  rules  of  adjudica- 
tion which  they  have  applied  or  learned  there;  and  by 
this  means  maintain,  what  constitutes  a  principal  per- 
fection of  civil  government,  one  law  of  the  land  in 
every  part  and  district  of  the  empire. 

Next  to  the  constitution  of  courts  of  justice,  wo 
are  naturally  led  to  consider  the  maxims  which  ought 
to  guide  their  proceedings;  and  upon  this  subject, 
the  chief  inquiry  will  be,  how  far,  and  for  what  rea- 
sons, it  is  expedient  to  adhere  to  former  determina- 
tions; or  whether  it  be  necessary  for  judges  to  attend 
to  any  other  consideration  than  the  apparent  and  par- 
ticular equity  of  the  case  before  them.  Now,  although 
to  assert  that  precedents  established  by  one  set  of 
judges  ought  to  be  incontrovertible  by  their  successors 
in  the  same  jurisdiction,  or  by  those  who  exercise  a 
higher,  would  be  to  attribute  to  the  sentence  of  those 
judges  all  the  authority  we  ascribe  to  the  most  solemn 
acts  of  the  legislature;  yet  the  general  security  of 
private  rights,  and  of  civil  life,  requires  that  such  pre- 
cedents, especially  if  they  have  been  confirmed  by 
repeated  adjudications,  should  not  be  overthrown, 
without  a  detection  of  manifest  error,  or.  without  some 
imputation  of  dishonesty  upon  the  court  by  whose 
judgment  the  question  was  first  decided  And  this 
deference  to  prior  decisions  is  founded  upon  two  rea- 
sons; first,  that  the  discretion  of  judges  may  be 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE.  141 

bound  down  by  positive  rules;  and  secondly,  that 
the  subject,  upon  every  occasion  in  which  his  legal 
interest  is  concerned,  may  know  beforehand  how  to 
act,  and  what  to  expect.  To  set  judges  free  from 
any  obligation  to  conform  themselves  to  the  decisions 
of  their  predecessors  would  be  to  lay  open  a  latitude 
of  judging  with  which  no  description  of  men  can 
safely  be  intrusted:  it  would  be  to  allow  space  for  the 
exercise  of  those  concealed  partialities,  which,  since 
they  cannot  by  any  human  policy  be  excluded,  ought 
to  be  confined  by  boundaries  and  landmarks.  It  is  in 
vain  to  allege,  that  the  superintendency  of  parliament 
is  always  at  hand  to  control  and  punish  abuses  of  judi- 
cial discretion.  By  what  rules  can  parliament  pro- 
ceed ?  How  shall  they  pronounce  a  decision  to  be 
wrong,  where  there  exists  no  acknowledged  measure 
or  standard  of  what  is  right;  which,  in  a  multitude  of 
instances,  would  be  the  case,  if  prior  determinations 
were  no  longer  to  be  appealed  to  ? 

Diminishing  the  danger  of  partiality  is  one  thing 
gained  by  adhering  to  precedents;  but  not  the  prin- 
cipal thing.  The  subject  of  every  system  of  laws 
must  expect  that  decision  in  his  own  case,  which  he 
knows  that  others  have  received  in  cases  similar  to  his. 
If  he  expect  not  this,  he  can  expect  nothing.  There 
exists  no  other  rule  or  principle  of  reasoning  by  which 
he  can  foretell,  or  even  conjecture,  the  event  of  a  ju- 
dicial contest.  To  remove  therefore  the  grounds  of 
this  expectation,  by  rejecting  the  force  and  authority 
of  precedents,  is  to  entail  upon  the  subject  the  worst 
property  of  slavery, — to  have  no  assurance  of  his 
rights,  or  knowledge  of  his  duty.  The  quiet  also  of 
the  country,  as  well  as  the  confidence  and  satisfaction 
of  each  man's  mind,  requires  uniformity  in  judicial 
proceedings.  Nothing  quells  a  spirit  of  litigation 
like  despair  of  success  :  therefore  nothing  so  com- 
pletely puts  an  end  to  lawsuits  as  a  rigid  adherence 
to  known  rules  of  adjudication.  Whilst  the  event  is 
uncertain,  which  it  ever  must  be  whilst  it  is  uncertain 
whether  former  determinations  upon  the  same  subject 
will  be  followed  or  not,  lawsuits  will  be  endless  and 
innumerable:  men  will  commonly  engage  in  them. 


1-12  ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE 

either  from  the  hope  of  prevailing  in  their  claims, 
which  the  smallest  chance  is  sufficient  to  encourage; 
or  with  the  design  of  intimidating  their  adversary  by 
the  terrors  of  a  dubious  litigation.  When  justice  is 
rendered  to  the  parties,  only  half  the  business  of  a 
court  of  justice  is  done:  the  more  important  part  of 
its  office  remains; — to  put  an  end,  for  the  future,  to 
every  fear  and  quarrel  and  expense  upon  the  same 
point;  and  so  to  regulate  its  proceedings,  that  not  only 
a  doubt  once  decided  may  be  stirred  no  more,  but  that 
the  whole  train  of  lawsuits,  which  issue  from  one  un- 
rertainty,  may  die  with  the  parent  question.  Now, 
this  advantage  can  be  attained  only  by  considering 
each  decision  as  a  direction  to  succeeding  judges. 
And  it  should  be  observed,  that  every  departure  from 
former  determinations,  especially  if  they  have  been 
often  repeated  or  long  submitted  to,  shakes  the  stabi- 
lity of  all  legal  title.  It  is  not  fixing  a  point  anew; 
it  is  leaving  every  thing  unfixed.  For  by  the  same 
stretch  of  power  by  which  the  present  race  of  judges 
take  upon  them  to  contradict  the  judgment  of  their 
predecessors,  those  who  try  the  question  next  may  set 
aside  theirs. 

From  an  adherence  however  to  precedents,  by 
which  so  much  is  gained  to  the  public,  two  conse- 
quences arise  which  are  often  lamented;  the  hardship 
of  particular  determinations,  and  the  intricacy  of  the 
law  as  a  science.  To  the  first  of  these  complaints, 
we  must  apply  this  reflection: — "  That  uniformity  is 
of  more  importance  than  equity,  in  proportion  as  a  ge- 
neral uncertainty  would  be  a  greater  evil  than  parti- 
cular injustice."  The  second  is  attended  with  no 
greater  inconveniency  than  that  of  erecting  the  prac- 
,  tice  of  the  law  into  a  separate  profession:  which  this 
reason,  we  allow,  makes  necessary;  for  if  we  attribute 
so  much  authority  to  precedents,  it  is  expedient  that 
they  be  known,  in  every  cause,  both  to  the  advocates 
and  to  the  judge:  This  knowledge  cannot  be  general, 
since  it  is  the  fruit  oftentimes  of  laborious  research, 
or  demands  a  memory  stored  with  long  collected  eru- 
dition. 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE.  143 

To  a  mind  revolving  upon  the  subject  of  human 
jurisprudence,  there  frequently  occurs  this  question: 
— Why,  since  the  maxims  of  natural  justice  are  few 
and  evident,  do  there  arise  so  many  doubts  and  con- 
troversies in  their  application  ?  Or,  in  other  words, 
how  comes  it  to  pass,  that  although  the  principles  of 
the  law  of  nature  be  simple,  and  for  the  most  part  suf- 
ficiently obvious,  there  should  exist  nevertheless,  in 
every  system  of  municipal  laws,  and  in  the  actual  ad- 
ministration of  relative  justice,  numerous  uncertain- 
ties and  acknowledged  difficulty  ?  Whence,  it  may  be 
asked,  so  much  room  for  litigation,  and  so  many  sub- 
sisting disputes,  if  the  rules  of  human  duty  be  neither 
obscure  nor  dubious  ?  If  a  system  of  morality,  con- 
taining both  the  precepts  of  revelation  and  the  deduc- 
tions of  reason,  may  be  comprised  within  the  compass 
of  one  moderate  volume;  and  the  moralist  be  able,  as 
he  pretends,  to  describe  the  rights  and  obligations  of 
mankind,  in  all  the  different  relations  they  may  hold 
to  one  another;  what  need  of  those  codes  of  positive 
and  particular  institutions,  of  those  tomes  of  statutes 
and  reports,  which  require  the  employment  of  a  long 
life  even  to  peruse  ?  And  this  question  is  immediately 
connected  with  the  argument  which  has  been  dis- 
cussed in  the  preceding  paragraph:  for,  unless  there 
be  found  some  greater  uncertainty  in  the  law  of  na- 
ture, or  what  may  be  called  natural  equity,  when  it 
comes  to  be  applied  to  real  cases  and  to  actual  adjudi- 
cation, than  what  appears  in  the  rules  and  principles 
of  the  science,  as  delivered  in  the  writings  of  those 
who  treat  of  the  subject,  it  were  better  that  the  deter- 
mination of  every  cause  should  be  left  to  the  conscience 
of  the  judge,  unfettered  by  precedents  and  authori- 
ties; since  the  very  purpose  for  which  these  are  in- 
troduced is  to  give  a  certainty  to  judicial  proceed- 
ings, which  such  proceedings  would  want  without 
them. 

Now,  to  account  for  the  existence  of  so  many 
sources  of  litigation,  notwithstanding  the  clearness 
and  perfection  of  natural  justice,  it  should  be  observed, 
in  the  first  place,  that  treatises  of  morality  always 
suppose  facts  to  be  ascertained;  and  not  only  so,  but 


144  ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE. 

the  intention  likewise  of  the  parties  to  be  known  and 
laid  bare.  For  example;  when  we  pronounce  that 
promises  ought  to  be  fulfilled  in  that  sense  in  which 
the  promiser  apprehended,  at  the  time  of  making  the 
promise,  the  other  party  received  and  understood  it; 
the  apprehension  of  one  side,  and  the  expectation  of 
the  other,  must  be  discovered,  before  this  rule  can  be 
reduced  to  practice,  or  applied  to  the  determination 
of  any  actual  dispute.  Wherefore  the  discussion  of 
facts  which  the  moralist  supposes  to  be  settled,  the 
discovery  of  intentions  which  he  presumes  to  be 
known,  still  remain  to  exercise  the  inquiry  of  courts 
of  justice.  And  as  these  facts  and  intentions  are  often 
to  be  inferred,  or  rather  conjectured,  from  obscure 
indications,  from  suspicious  testimony,  or  from  a  com- 
parison of  opposite  and  contending  probabilities,  they 
afford  a  never  failing  supply  of  doubt  and  litigation. 
For  which  reason,  as  hath  been  observed  in  a  former 
part  of  this  work,  the  science  of  morality  is  to  be  con- 
sidered rather  as  a  direction  to  the  parties,  who  are 
conscious  of  their  own  thoughts  and  motives  and  de- 
signs, to  which  consciousness  the  teacher  of  morality 
constantly  appeals;  than  as  a  guide  to  the  judge,  or 
to  any  third  person,  whose  arbitration  must  proceed 
upon  rules  of  evidence,  and  maxims  of  credibility, 
with  which  the  moralist  has  no  concern. 

Secondly,  There  exists  a  multitude  of  cases,  in  which 
the  law  of  nature,,  that  is,  the  law  of  public  expedi- 
ency, prescribes  nothing,  except  that  some  certain  rule 
be  adhered  to,  and  that  the  rule  actually  established 
be  preserved;  it  either  being  indifferent  what  rule  ob- 
tains, or,  out  of  many  rules,  no  one  being  so  much 
more  advantageous  than  the  rest,  as  to  recompense 
the  inconveniency  of  an  alteration.  In  all  such  cases, 
the  law  of  nature  sends  us  to  the  law  of  the  land. 
She  directs,  that  either  some  fixed  rule  be  introduced 
by  an  act  of  the  legislature,  or  that  the  rule  which 
accident,  or  custom,  or  common  consent,  hath  already 
established,  be  steadily  maintained.  Thus,  in  the 
descent  of  lands,  or  the  inheritance  of  personals  from 
intestate  proprietors,  whether  the  kindred  of  the 
grandmother  or  of  the  great-grandmother  shall  be  pre~ 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE.  145 

ferred  in  the  succession;  whether  the  degrees  of  con- 
sanguinity shall  be  computed  through  the  common  an- 
cestor, or  from  him;  whether  the  widow  shall  take  a 
third  or  a  moiety  of  her  husband's  fortune;  whether 
sons  shall  be  preferred  to  daughters,  or  the  elder  to 
the  younger;  whether  the  distinction  of  age  shall  be 
regarded  amongst  sisters,  as  well  as  between  brothers: 
in  these,  and  in  a  great  variety  of  questions  which  the 
same  subject  supplies,  the  law  of  nature  determines 
nothing.  The  only  answer  she  returns  to  our  inquiries 
is,  that  some  certain  and  general  rule  be  laid  down 
by  public  authority;  be  obeyed  when  laid  down;  and 
that  the  quiet  of  the  country  be  not  disturbed,  nor  the 
expectations  of  heirs  frustrated,  by  capricious  inno- 
vations. This  silence  or  neutrality  of  the  law  of  na- 
ture, which  we  have  exemplified  in  the  case  of  intes- 
tacy, holds  concerning  a  great  part  of  the  questions 
that  relate  to  the  right  or  acquisition  of  property. 
Recourse  then  must  necessarily  be  had  to  statutes,  or 
precedents,  or  usage,  to  fix  what  the  law  of  nature  has 
left  loose.  The  interpretation  of  these  statutes,  the 
search  after  precedents,  the  investigation  of  customs 
compose  therefore  an  unavoidable,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  large  and  intricate  portion  of  forensic  business. 
Positive  constitutions,  or  judicial  authorities,  are  in 
like  manner  wanted  to  give  precision  to  many  things 
which  are  in  their  nature  indeterminate.  The  age  of 
legal  discretion;  at  what  time  of  life  a  person  shall 
be  deemed  competent  to  the  performance  of  any  act 
which  may  bind  his  property;  whether  at  twenty,  or 
twenty-one,  or  earlier  or  later,  or  at  some  point  of 
time  between  these  years;  can  only  be  ascertained  by 
a  positive  rule  of  the  society  to  which  the  party  be- 
longs. The  line  has  not  been  drawn  by  nature;  the 
human  understanding  advancing  to  maturity  by  insen- 
sible degrees,  and  its  progress  varying  in  different  in- 
dividuals. Yet  it  is  necessary,  for  the  sake  of  mutual 
security,  that  a  precise  age  be  fixed,  and  that  what  is 
fixed  be  known  to  all.  It  is  on  these  occasions  that 
the  intervention  of  law  supplies  the  inconstancy  of 
nature.  Again,  there  are  other  things  which  are  per- 
fectly arbitrary^  and  capable  of  no  certainty  but  what 

VOL.   II.  13 


146  ADMINISTRATION    OF    JUSTICE. 

is  given  to  them  by  positive  regulation.  It  is  fit  that 
a  limited  time  should  be  assigned  to  defendants,  to 
plead  to  the  complaints  alleged  against  them;  and 
also  that  the  default  of  pleading  within  a  certain  time 
should  be  taken  for  a  confession  of  the  charge:  but  to 
how  many  days  or  months  that  term  should  be  ex- 
tended, though  necessary  to  be  known  with  certainty, 
cannot  be  known  at  all  by  any  information  which  the 
law  of  nature  affords.  And  the  same  remark  seems 
applicable  to  almost  all  those  rules  of  proceeding, 
which  constitute  what  is  called  the  practice  of  the 
court:  as  they  cannot  be  traced  out  by  reasoning, 
they  must  be  settled  by  authority. 

Thirdly,  In  contracts,  whether  express  or  implied, 
which  involve  a  great  number  of  conditions;  as  in 
those  which  are  entered  into  between  masters  and 
servants,  principals,  and  agents;  many  also  of  mer- 
chandise, or  for  works  of  art;  in  some  likewise  which 
relate  to  the  negociation  of  money  or  bills,  or  to  the 
acceptance  of  credit  or  security;  the  original  design 
and  expectation  of  the  parties  was,  that  both  sides 
should  be  guided  by  the  course  and  custom  of  the 
country  in  transactions  of  the  same  sort.  Conse- 
quently, when  these  contracts  come  to  be  disputed, 
natural  justice  can  only  refer  to  that  custom.  But  as 
such  customs  are  not  always  sufficiently  uniform  or 
notorious,  but  often  to  be  collected  from  the  produc- 
tion and  comparison  of  instances  and  accounts  repug- 
nant to  one  another;  and  each  custom  being  only  that, 
after  all,  which  amongst  a  variety  of  usages  seems  to 
predominate;  we  have  here  also  ample  room  for  doubt 
and  contest. 

Fourthly,  As  the  law  of  nature,  founded  in  the  very 
construction  of  human  society,  which  is  formed  to 
endure,  through  a  series  of  perishing  generations,  re- 
quires that  thp  just  engagements  a  man  enters  into 
should  continue  in  force  beyond  his  own  life;  it  fol- 
lows, that  the  private  rights  of  persons  frequently 
depend  upon  what  has  been  transacted  in  times  remote 
from  the  present,  by  their  ancestors  or  predecessors, 
by  those  under  whom  they  claim,  or  to  whose  obliga- 
tions tney  have  succeeded.  Thus  the  questions  which 


ADMINISTRATION    OF    JUSTICE.  147 

usually  arise  between  lords  of  naanors  and  their  ten- 
ants, between  the  king  and  those  who  claim  royal 
franchises,  or  between  them  and  the  persons  affected 
by  these  franchises,  depend  upon  the  terms  of  the 
original  grant.  In  like  manner,  every  dispute  con- 
cerning tithes,  in  which  an  exemption  or  composition 
is  pleaded,  depends  upon  the  agreement  which  took 
place  between  the  predecessor  of  the  claimant  and  the 
ancient  owner  of  the  land.  The  appeal  to  these 
grants  and  agreements  is  dictated  by  natural  equity, 
as  well  as  by  the  municipal  law:  but  concerning  the 
existence,  or  the  conditions,  of  such  old  covenants, 
doubts  will  perpetually  occur,  to  which  the  law  of 
nature  affords  no  solution.  The  loss  or  decay  of  re- 
cords, the  perishableness  of  living  memory,  the  cor- 
ruption and  carelessness  of  tradition,  all  conspire  to 
multiply  uncertainties  upon  this  head:  what  cannot  be 
produced  or  proved  must  be  left  to  loose  and  fallible 
presumption.  Under  the  same  head  may  be  included 
another  topic  of  altercation — the  tracing  out  of  boun- 
daries, which  time,  or  neglect,  or  unity  of  possession, 
or  mixture  of  occupation,  has  confounded  or  obliterat- 
ed. To  which  should  be  added,  a  difficulty  which 
often  presents  itself  in  disputes  concerning  rights  of 
way,  both  public  and  private,  and  of  those  easements 
which  one  man  claims  in  another  man's  property; 
namely,  that  of  distinguishing,  after  a  lapse  of  years, 
the  use  of  an  indulgence  from  the  exercise  of  a  right. 

Fifthly,  The  quantity  or  extent  of  an  injury,  even 
when  the  cause  and  author  of  it  are  known,  is  often 
dubious  and  undefined.  If  the  injury  consist  in  the 
loss  of  some  specific  right,  the  value  of  the  right  mea- 
sures the  amount  of  the  injury:  but  what  a  man  may 
have  suffered  in  his  person,  from  an  assault;  in  his 
reputation,  by  slander;  or  in  the  comfort  of  his  life, 
by  the  seduction  of  a  wife  or  a  daughter;  or  what 
sum  of  money  shall  be  deemed  a  reparation  for  da- 
mages such  as  these;  cannot  be  ascertained  by  an} 
rules  which  the  law  of  nature  supplies.  The  law  of" 
nature  commands  that  reparation  be  made;  and  adds 
to  her  command,  that,  when  the  aggressor  and  the 
sufferer  disagree,  the  damage  be  assessed  by  authorized 


148  ADMINISTRATION    OF    JUSTICE. 

and  indifferent  arbitrators.  Here  then  recourse  must 
be  had  to  courts  of  law,  not  only  with  the  permission, 
but  in  some  measure  by  the  direction  of  natural 
justice. 

Sixthly,  When  controversies  arise  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  written  laws,  they  for  the  most  part  arise  up- 
on some  contingency  which  the  composer  of  the  law 
did  not  foresee  or  think  of.  In  the  adjudication  of 
such  cases,  this  dilemma  presents  itself :  If  the  laws 
be  permitted  to  operate  only  upon  the  cases  which 
were  actually  contemplated  by  the  law-makers,  they 
will  always  be  found  defective:  if  they  be  extended  to 
every  case  to  which  the  reasoning,  and  spirit,  and  ex- 
pediency of  the  provision  seems  to  belong,  without 
any  further  evidence  of  the  intention  of  the  legisla- 
ture, we  shall  allow  to  the  judges  a  liberty  of  applying 
the  law,  which  will  fall  very  little  short  of  the  power 
of  making  it.  If  a  literal  construction  be  adhered 
to,  the  law  will  often  fail  of  its  end:  If  a  loose  and 
vague  exposition  be  admitted,  the  law  might  as  well 
have  never  been  enacted;  for  this  licence  will  bring 
back  into  the  subject  all  the  discretion  and  uncertainty 
which  it  was  the  design  of  the  legislature  to  take 
away.  Courts  of  justice  are,  and  always  must  be, 
embarrassed  by  these  opposite  difficulties;  and  as  it 
never  can  be  known  beforehand  in  what  degree  either 
consideration  may  prevail  in  the  mind  of  the  judge, 
there  remains  an  unavoidable  cause  of  doubt,  and  a 
place  for  contention. 

Seventhly,  The  deliberations  of  courts  of  justice  up- 
on every  new  question  are  encumbered  with  additional 
difficulties,  in  consequence  of  the  authority  which  the 
judgment  of  the  court  possesses  as  a  precedent  to  fu- 
ture judicatures;  which  authority  appertains  not  only 
to  the  conclusions  the  court  delivers,  but  to  the  prin- 
ciples and  arguments  upon  which  they  are  built.  The 
view  of  this  effect  makes  it  necessary  for  a  judge  to 
look  beyond  the  case  before  him;  and,  beside  the 
attention  he  owes  to  the  truth  and  justice  of  the  cause 
between  the  parties,  to  reflect  whether  the  principles 
and  maxims,  and  reasoning,  which  he  adopts  and 
authorizes,  can  be  applied  with  safety  to  all  cases 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  JUSTICE.  149 

which  admit  of  a  comparison  with  the  present.  The 
decision  of  the  cause,  were  the  effects  of  the  decision 
to  stop  there,  might  be  easy;  but  the  consequence  of 
establishing  the  principle  which  such  a  decision  as- 
sumes, may  be  difficult,  though  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance, to  be  foreseen  and  regulated. 

Finally,  After  all  the  certainty  and  rest  that  can  be 
given  to  points  of  law,  either  by  the  interposition  of 
the  legislature  or  the  authority  of  precedents,  one 
principal  source  of  disputation,  and  into  which  indeed 
the  greater  part  of  legal  controversies  may  be  resolved, 
will  remain  still,  namely,  "  the  competition  of  oppo- 
site analogies."  When  a  point  of  law  has  been  once 
adjudged,  neither  that  question,  nor  any  which  com- 
pletely, and  in  all  its  circumstances,  corresponds  with 
that,  can  be  brought  a  second  time  into  dispute:  but 
questions  arise,  which  resemble  this  only  indirectly 
and  in  part,  in  certain  views  and  circumstances,  and 
which  may  seem  to  bear  an  equal  or  a  greater  affinity 
to  other  adjudged  cases;  questions  which  can  be 
brought  within  any  fixed  rule  only  by  analogy,  and 
which  hold  a  relation  by  analogy  to  different  rules. 
It  is  by  the  urging  of  the  different  analogies  that  the 
contention  of  the  bar  is  carried  on:  and  it  is  in  the 
comparison,  adjustment,  and  reconciliation  of  them 
with  one  another;  in  the  discerning  of  such  distinc- 
tions; and  in  the  framing  of  such  a  determination,  as 
may  either  save  the  various  rules  alleged  in  the  cause, 
or,  if  that  be  impossible,  may  give  up  the  weaker 
analogy  to  the  stronger;  that  the  sagacity  and  wisdom 
of  the  court  are  seen  and  exercised.  Amongst  a 
thousand  instances  of  this,  we  may  cite  one  of  general 
notoriety,  in  the  contest  that  has  lately  been  agitated 
concerning  literary  property.  The  personal  industry 
which  an  author  expends  upon  the  composition  of  his 
work  bears  so  near  a  resemblance  to  that  by  which 
every  other  kind  of  property  is  earned,  or  deserved, 
or  acquired;  or  rather  there  exists  such  a  correspon- 
dency between  what  is  created  by  the  study  of  a  man's 
mind,  and  the  production  of  his  labour  in  any  other 
way  of  applying  it,  that  he  seems  entitled  to  the  same 
exclusive,  assignable,  and  perpetual  right  in  both;  and 

VOL.  ii.  13* 


150  ADMINISTRATION   OF   JUSTICE 

that  right  to  the  same  protection  of  law.  This  was 
the  analogy  contended  for  on  one  side.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  book,  as  to  the  author's  right  in  it,  appears 
similar  to  an  invention  of  art,  as  a  machine,  an  engine, 
a  medicine:  and  since  the  law  permits  these  to  be 
copied,  or  imitated,  except  where  an  exclusive  use  or 
sale  is  reserved  to  the  inventor  by  patent,  the  same 
liberty  should  be  allowed  in  the  publication  and  sale 
of  books.  This  was  the  analogy  maintained  by  the 
advocates  of  an  open  trade.  And  the  competition  of 
these  opposite  analogies  constituted  the  difficulty  of 
the  case,  as  far  as  the  same  was  argued,  or  adjudged, 
upon  principles  of  common  law. — One  example  may 
serve  to  illustrate  our  meaning:  but  whoever  takes  up 
a  volume  of  Reports  will  find  most  of  the  arguments 
it  contains  capable  of  the  same  analysis;  although 
the  analogies,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  sometimes  so 
entangled  as  not  to  be  easily  unravelled,  or  even 
perceived. 

Doubtful  and  obscure  points  of  law  are  not  however 
nearly  so  numerous  as  they  are  apprehended  to  be. 
Out  of  the  multitude  of  causes  which,  in  the  course 
of  each  year,  are  brought  to  trial  in  the  metropolis,  or 
upon  the  circuits,  there  are  few  in  which  any  point  is 
reserved  for  the  judgment  of  superior  courts.  Yet 
these  few  contain  all  the  doubts  with  which  the  law 
is  chargeable;  for  as  to  the  rest,  the  uncertainty,  as 
hath  been  shown  above,  is  not  in  the  law,  but  in  the 
means  of  human  information. 


THERE  are  two  particularities  in  the  judicial  con- 
stitution of  this  country,  which  do  not  carry  with 
them  that  evidence  of  their  propriety  which  recom- 
mends almost  every  other  part  of  the  system.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  rule  which  requires  that  juries  be 
unanimous  in  their  verdicts.  To  expect  that  twelve 
men,  taken  by  lot  out  of  a  promiscuous  multitude, 
should  agree  in  their  opinion  upon  points  confessedly 
dubious,  and  upon  which  oftentimes  the  wisest  judg- 
ments might  be  holden  in  suspense;  or  to  suppose  that 
any  real  unanimity  or  change  of  opinion,  in  the  dis- 


ADMINISTRATION  OF   JUSTICE.  151 

santing  jurors,  could  be  procured  by  confining  them 
until  they  all  consented  to  the  same  verdict;  bespeaks 
more  of  the  conceit  of  a  barbarous  age,  than  of  the 
policy  which  could  dictate  such  an  institution  as  that 
of  juries.  Nevertheless,  the  effects  of  this  rule  are 
not  so  detrimental  as  the  rule  itself  is  unreasonable: — 
in  criminal  prosecutions,  it  operates  considerably  in 
favour  of  the  prisoner;  for  if  a  juror  finds  it  necessary 
to  surrender  to  the  obstinacy  of  others,  he  will  much 
more  readily  resign  his  opinion  on  the  side  of  mercy 
than  of  condemnation:  in  civil  suits,  it  adds  weight  to 
the  direction  of  the  judge;  for  when  a  conference  with 
one  another  does  not  seem  likely  to  produce,  in  the 
jury,  the  agreement  that  is  necessary,  they  will  natu- 
rally close  their  disputes  by  a  common  submission  to 
the  opinion  delivered  from  the  bench.  However, 
theie  seems  to  be  less  of  the  concurrence  of  separate 
judgments  in  the  same  conclusion,  consequently  less 
assurance  that  the  conclusion  is  founded  in  reasons  of 
apparent  truth  and  justice,  than  if  the  decision  were 
left  to  a  plurality,  or  to  some  certain  majority  of 
voices. 

The  second  circumstance  in  our  constitution,  which, 
however  it  may  succeed  in  practice,  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  suggested  by  any  intelligible  fitness  in  the 
nature  of  the  thing,  is  the  choice  that  is  made  of  the 
House  of  Lords  as  a  court  of  appeal  from  every  civil 
court  of  judicature  in  the  kingdom;  and  the  last  also 
and  highest  appeal  to  which  the  subject  can  resort. 
There  appears  to  be  nothing  in  the  constitution  of  that 
assembly;  in  the  education,  habits,  character,  or  pro- 
fessions of  the  members  who  compose  it;  in  the  mode 
of  their  appointment,  or  the  right  by  which  they  suc- 
ceed to  their  places  in  it,  that  should  qualify  them 
for  this  arduous  office;  except,  perhaps,  that  the  eleva- 
tion of  their  rank  and  fortune  affords  a  security  against 
the  offer  and  influence  of  small  bribes.  Officers  of  the 
army  and  navy,  courtiers,  ecclesiastics;  young  men 
who  have  just  attained  the  age  of  twenty-one,  and 
who  have  passed  their  youth  in  the  dissipation  and 
pursuits  which  commonly  accompany  the  possession 
or  inheritance  of  great  fortunes;  country  gentlemen 


152  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JUSTICE. 

occupied  in  the  management  of  their  estates,  or  in  the 
care  of  their  domestic  concerns  and  family  interests- 
the  greater  part  of  the  assembly  born  to  their  station, 
that  is,  placed  in  it  by  chance;  most  of  the  rest  ad- 
vanced to  the  peerage  for  services,  and  from  motives 
utterly  unconnected  with  legal  erudition: — these  men 
compose  the  tribunal,  to  which  the  constitution  intrusts 
the  interpretation  of  her  laws,  and  the  ultimate  deci- 
sion of  every  dispute  between  her  subjects.  These  are 
the  men  assigned  to  review  judgments  of  law  pro- 
nounced by  sages  of  the  profession,  who  have  spent 
their  lives  in  the  stu-dy  and  practice  of  the  jurispru- 
dence of  their  country.  Such  is  the  order  which  our 
ancestors  have  established.  The  effect  only  proves 
the  truth  of  this  maxim; — "  That  when  a  single  insti- 
tution is  extremely  dissonant  from  other  parts  of  the 
system  to  which  it  belongs,  it  will  always  find  some 
way  of  reconciling  itself  to  the  analogy  which  governs 
and  pervades  the  rest."  By  constantly  placing  in  the 
House  of  Lords  some  of  the  most  eminent  and  expe- 
rienced lawyers  in  the  kingdom;  by  calling  to  their 
aid  the  advice  of  the  judges,  when  any  abstract  ques- 
tion of  law  awaits  their  determination;  by  the  almost 
implicit  and  undisputed  deference  which  the  unin- 
formed part  of  the  house  find  it  necessary  to  pay  to 
the  learning  of  their  colleagues;  the  appeal  to  the 
House  of  Lords  becomes  in  fact  an  appeal  to  the  col- 
lected wisdom  of  our  supreme  courts  of  justice;  re- 
ceiving indeed  solemnity,  but  little  perhaps  of  direc- 
tion, from  the  presence  of  the  assembly  in  which  it  is 
heard  and  determined. 

These,  however,  even  if  real,  are  minute  imperfec- 
tions. A  politician  who  should  sit  down  to  delineate 
a  plan  for  the  dispensation  of  public  justice,  guarded 
against  all  access  to  influence  and  corruption,  and 
bringing  together  the  separate  advantages  of  know- 
ledge and  impartiality,  would  find,  when  he  had  done, 
that  he  had  been  transcribing  the  judicial  constitution 
of  England.  And  it  may  teach  the  most  discontented 
amongst  us  to  acquiesce  in  the  government  of  his 
country,  to  reflect  that  the  pure,  and  wise,  and  equal 
administration  of  the  laws  forms  the  first  end  and 


CRIMES  AND   PUNISHMENTS.  153 

blessing  of  social  union;  and  that  this  blessing  is  en- 
joyed by  him  in  a  perfection,  which  he  will  seek  in 
vain  in  any  other  nation  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF  CRIMES  AND   PUNISHMENTS. 

THE  proper  end  of  human  punishment  is  not  the 
satisfaction  of  justice,  but  the  prevention  of  crimes. 
By  the  satisfaction  of  justice,  I  mean  the  retribution 
of  so  much  pain  for  so  much  guilt;  which  is  the  dis- 
pensation we  expect  at  the  hand  of  God,  and  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  consider  as  the  order  of  things 
that  perfect  justice  dictates  and  requires.  In  what 
sense,  or  whether  with  truth  in  any  sense,  justice  rnay 
be  said  to  demand  the  punishment  of  offenders,  I  do 
not  now  inquire;  but  I  assert,  that  this  demand  is  not 
the  motive  or  occasion  of  human  punishment.  What 
would  it  be  to  the  magistrate,  that  offences  went  alto- 
gether unpunished,  if  the  impunity  of  the  offenders 
were  followed  by  no  danger  or  prejudice  to  the  com- 
monwealth ?  The  fear  lest  the  escape  of  the  criminal 
should  encourage  him,  or  others  by  his  example,  to 
repeat  the  same  crime,  or  to  commit  different  crimes, 
is  the  sole  consideration  which  authorizes  the  inflic- 
tion of  punishment  by  human  laws.  Now,  that,  what- 
ever it  be,  which  is  the  cause  and  end  of  the  punish- 
ment, ought  undoubtedly  to  regulate  the  measure  of 
its  severity.  But  this  cause  appears  to  be  founded, 
not  in  the  guilt  of  the  offender,  but  in  the  necessity  of 
preventing  the  repetition  of  the  offence:  and  hence 
results  the  reason,  that  crimes  are  not  by  any  govern- 
ment punished  in  proportion  to  their  guilt,  nor  in  all 
cases  ought  to  be  so,  but  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty 
and  the  necessity  of  preventing  them.  Thus  the  steal- 
ing of  goods  privately  out  of  a  shop,  may  not,  in  its 
moral  quality,  be  more  criminal  than  the  stealing  of 
them  out  of  a  house;  yet,  being  equally  necessarv  and 
more  difficult  to  be  prevented,  the  law,  in  certain  cir- 


154  CRIMES  AND  PUNISHMENTS 

cumstances,  denounces  against  it  a  severer  punishment. 
The  crime  must  be  prevented  by  some  means  or  other; 
and  consequently,  whatever  means  appear  necessary  to 
this  end,  whether  they  be  proportionable  to  the  guilt 
of  the  criminal  or  not,  are  adopted  rightly,  because 
they  are  adopted  upon  the  principle  which  alone  justi- 
fies the  infliction  of  punishment  at  all.  From  the 
same  consideration  it  also  follows,  that  punishment 
ought  not  to  be  employed,  much  less  rendered  severe, 
when  the  crime  can  be  prevented  by  any  other  means 
Punishment  is  an  evil  to  which  the  magistrate  resorts 
only  from  its  being  necessary  to  the  prevention  of  a 
greater.  This  necessity  does  not  exist,  when  the  end 
may  be  attained,  that  is,  when  the  public  may  be  de- 
fended from  the  effects  of  the  crime,  by  any  other  ex- 
pedient. The  sanguinary  laws  which  have  been  made 
against  counterfeiting  or  diminishing  the  gold  coin  of 
the  kingdom  might  be  just,  until  the  method  of  de- 
tecting the  fraud,  by  weighing  the  money,  was  intro- 
duced into  general  usage.  Since  that  precaution  was 
practised,  these  laws  have  slept;  and  an  execution 
under  them  at  this  day  \\ould  be  deemed  a  measure  of 
unjustifiable  severity.  The  same  principle  accounts 
for  a  circumstance  which  has  been  often  censured  as 
an  absurdity  in  the  penal  laws  of  this  and  of  most 
modern  nations,  namely,  that  breaches  of  trust  aro 
either  not  punished  at  all,  or  punished  with  less  rigour 
than  other  frauds. — Wherefore  is  it,  some  have  asked, 
that  a  violation  of  confidence,  which  increases  the 
guilt,  should  mitigate  the  penalty? — This  lenity,  or 
rather  forbearance  of  the  laws  is  founded  in  the  most 
reasonable  distinction.  A  due  circumspection  in  the 
choice  of  the  persons  whom  they  trust;  caution  in 
limiting  the  extent  of  that  trust;  or  the  requiring  of 
sufficient  security  for  the  faithful  discharge  of  it;  will 
commonly  guard  men  from  injuries  of  this  description: 
and  the  law  will  not  interpose  its  sanctions  to  protect 
negligence  and  credulity,  or  to  supply  the  place  of 
domestic  care  and  prudence.  To  be  convinced  that 
the  law  proceeds  entirely  upon  this  consideration,  we 
have  only  to  observe,  that  where  the  confidence  is 
unavoidable, — where  no  practicable  vigilance  could 


CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS.  155 

watch  the  offender,  as  in  the  case  of  theft  committed 
by  a  servant  in  the  shop  or  dwelling-house  of  his 
master,  or  upon  property  to  which  he  must  necessarily 
have  access, — the  sentence  of  the  law  is  not  less 
severe,  and  its  execution  commonly  more  certain  and 
rigorous  than  if  no  trust  at  all  had  intervened. 

It  is  in  pursuance  of  the  same  principle,  which  per- 
vades indeed  the  whole  system  of  penal  jurisprudence, 
that  the  facility  with  which  any  species  of  crimes  is 
perpetrated  has  been  generally  deemed  a  reason  for 
aggravating  the  punishment.  Thus,  sheep  stealing, 
horse  stealing,  the  stealing  of  cloth  from  tenters  or 
bleaching  grounds,  by  our  laws,  subject  the  offenders 
to  sentence  of  death:  not  that  these  crimes  are  in  their 
nature  more  heinous  than  many  simple  felonies  which 
are  punished  by  imprisonment  or  transportation,  but 
because  the  property,  being  more  exposed,  requires 
the  terror  of  capital  punishment  to  protect  it.  This 
severity  would  be  absurd  and  unjust,  if  the  guilt  of 
the  offender  were  the  immediate  cause  and  measure 
of  the  punishment;  but  it  is  a  consistent  and  regular 
consequence  of  the  supposition,  that  the  right  of  pun- 
ishment results  from  the  necessity  of  preventing  the 
crime:  for  if  this  be  the  end  proposed,  the  severity 
of  the  punishment  must  be  increased  in  proportion  to 
the  expediency  and  the  difficulty  of  attaining  this 
end;  that  is,  in  a  proportion  compounded  of  the  mis- 
chief of  the  crime,  and  of  the  ease  with  which  it  is  ex- 
ecuted. The  difficulty  of  discovery  is  a  circumstance 
to  be  included  in  the  same  consideration.  It  consti- 
tutes indeed,  with  respect  to  the  crime,  the  facility  of 
which  we  speak.  By  how  much  therefore  the  detec- 
tion of  an  offender  is  more  rare  and  uncertain,  by  so 
much  the  more  severe  must  be  the  punishment  when 
he  is  detected.  Thus  the  writing  of  incendiary  let- 
ters, though  in  itself  a  pernicious  and  alarming  injury, 
calls  for  a  more  condign  and  exemplary  punishment, 
by  the  very  obscurity  with  which  the  crime  is  com- 
mitted. 

From  the  justice  of  God,  we  are  taught  to  look  for 
a  gradation  of  punishment  exactly  proportioned  to  the 
guilt  of  the  offender:  when  therefore,  in  assigning 


156  CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS 

the  degrees  of  human  punishment,  we  introduce  con- 
siderations distinct  from  that  guilt,  and  a  proportion 
so  varied  by  external  circumstances  that  equal  crimes 
frequently  undergo  unequal  punishments,  or  the  less 
crime  the  greater;  it  is  natural  to  demand  the  rea- 
son why  a  different  measure  of  punishment  should  be 
expected  from  God,  and  observed  by  man;  why  that 
rule,  which  befits  the  absolute  and  perfect  justice  of 
the  Deity  should  not  be  the  rule  which  ought  to  be 
pursued  and  imitated  by  human  laws.  The  solution 
of  this  difficulty  must  be  sought  for  in  those  peculiar 
attributes  of  the  Divine  nature,  which  distinguish  the 
dispensations  of  Supreme  Wisdom  from  the  proceed- 
ings of  human  judicature.  A  Being  whose  know- 
ledge penetrates  every  concealment,  from  the  opera- 
tion of  whose  will  no  art  or  flight  can  escape,  and  in 
whose  hands  punishment  is  sure;  such  a  Being  may 
conduct  the  moral  government  of  his  creation,  in  the 
best  and  wisest  manner,  by  pronouncing  a  law  that 
every  crime  shall  finally  receive  a  punishment  pro- 
portioned to  the  guilt  which  it  contains,  abstracted 
ifrom  any  foreign  consideration  whatever;  and  may 
testify  his  veracity  to  the  spectators  of  his  judgments, 
by  carrying  this  law  into  strict  execution.  But  when 
the  care  of  the  public  safety  is  intrusted  to  men, 
whose  authority  over  their  fellow  creatures  is  limited 
by  defects  of  power  and  knowledge;  from  whose  ut- 
most vigilance  and  sagacity  the  greatest  offenders 
often  lie  hid;  whose  wisest  precautions  and  speediest 
pursuit  may  be  eluded  by  artifice  or  concealment;  a 
different  necessity,  a  new  rule  of  proceeding,  results 
from  the  very  imperfection  of  their  faculties.  In  their 
hands,  the  uncertainty  of  punishment  must  be  com- 
pensated by  the  severity.  The  ease  with  which 
crimes  are  committed  or  concealed  must  be  counter- 
acted by  additional  penalties  and  increased  terrors. 
The  very  end  for  which  human  government  is  esta- 
blished requires  that  its  regulations  be  adapted  to  the 
suppression  of  crimes.  This  end,  whatever  it  may  do 
in  the  plans  of  infinite  Wisdom,  does  not,  in  the  desig- 
nation of  temporal  penalties,  always  coincide  with  tho 
proportionate  punishment  of  guilt. 


CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS.  157 

There  are  two  methods  of  administering  penal  jus- 
tice. 

The  first  method  assigns  capital  punishment  to  few 
offences,  and  inflicts  it  invariably. 

The  second  method  assigns  capital  punishment  to 
many  kinds  of  offences,  but  inflicts  it  only  upon  a 
few  examples  of  each  kind. 

The  latter  of  which  two  methods  has  been  long 
adopted  in  this  country,  where,  of  those  who  receive 
sentence  of  death,  scarcely  one  in  ten  is  executed. 
And  the  preference  of  this  to  the  former  method  seems 
to  be  founded  in  the  consideration,  that  the  selection 
of  proper  objects  for  capital  punishment  principally 
depends  upon  circumstances,  which,  however  easy  to 
perceive  in  each  particular  case  after  the  crime  is  com- 
mitted, it  is  impossible  to  enumerate  or  define  before- 
hand, or  to  ascertain,  however,  with  that  exactness 
which  is  requisite  in  legal  descriptions.  Hence,  al- 
though it  be  necessary  to  fix  by  precise  rules  of  law 
the  boundary  on  one  side,  that  is,  the  limit  to  which 
the  punishment  may  be  extended;  and  also  that  no- 
thing less  than  the  authority  of  the  whole  legislature 
be  suffered  to  determine  that  boundary,  and  assign 
these  rules;  yet  the  mitigation  of  punishment,  the 
exercise  of  lenity,  may  without  danger  be  intrusted  to 
the  executive  magistrate,  whose  discretion  will  ope- 
rate upon  those  numerous,  unforeseen,  mutable,  and 
indefinite  circumstances,  both  of  the  crime  and  the 
criminal,  which  constitute  or  qualify  the  malignity  of 
each  offence.  Without  the  power  of  relaxation  lodged 
in  a  living  authority,  either  some  offenders  would 
escape  capital  punishment,  whom  the  public  safety 
required  to  suffer;  or  some  would  undergo  this  pun- 
ishment, where  it  was  neither  deserved  nor  neces- 
sary. For  if  judgment  of  death  were  reserved  for  one 
or  two  species  of  crimes  only  (which  would  probably 
be  the  case  if  that  judgment  was  intended  to  be  exe- 
cuted without  exception,)  crimes  might  occur  of  the 
most  dangerous  example,  and  accompanied  with  cir- 
cumstances of  heinous  aggravation,  which  did  not 
fall  within  any  description  of  offences  that  the  laws 
had  made  capital,  and  which  consequently  could  not 

VOL.   II.  14 


153  CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS. 

receive  the  punishment  their  own  malignity  and  the 
public  safety  required.  What  is  worse,  it  would  be 
known  before  hand,  that  such  crimes  might  be  com- 
mitted without  danger  to  the  offender's  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  if,  to  reach  these  possible  cases,  the  whole 
class  of  offences  to  which  they  belong  be  subjected  to 
pains  of  death,  and  no  power  of  remitting  this  severity 
remain  any  where,  the  execution  of  the  laws  will  be- 
come more  sanguinary  than  the  public  compassion 
would  endure,  'or  than  is  necessary  to  the  general 
security. 

The  law  of  England  is  constructed  upon  a  different 
and  a  better  policy.  By  the  number  of  statutes  creat- 
ing capital  offences,  it  sweeps  into  the  net  every  crime 
which,  under  any  possible  circumstances,  may  merit 
the  punishment  of  death;  but  when  the  execution  of 
this  sentence  comes  to  be  deliberated  upon,  a  small 
proportion  of  each  class  are  singled  out,  the  general 
character,  or  the  peculiar  aggravations,  of  whose 
crimes  render  them  fit  examples  of  public  justice. 
By  this  expedient,  few  actually  suffer  death,  whilst 
the  dread  and  danger  of  it  hang  over  the  crimes  of 
many.  The  tenderness  of  the  law  cannot  be  taken 
advantage  of.  The  life  of  the  subject  is  spared  as  far 
as  the  necessity  of  restraint  and  intimidation  permits; 
yet  no  one  will  adventure  upon  the  commission  of  any 
enormous  crime,  from  a  knowledge  that  the  laws  have 
not  provided  for  its  punishment.  The  wisdom  and 
humanity  of  this  design  furnish  a  just  excuse  for  the 
multiplicity  of  capital  offences,  which  the  laws  of 
England  are  accused  of  creating  beyond  those  of 
other  countries.  The  chat  go  of  cruelty  is  answered 
by  observing,  that  these  laws  were  never  meant  to  be 
carried  into  indiscriminate  execution;  that  the  legis- 
lature, when  it  establishes  its  last  and  highest  sanc- 
tions, trusts  to  the  benignity  of  the  crown  to  relax 
their  severity,  as  often  as  circumstances  appear  to  pal- 
liate the  offence,  or  even  as  often  as  those  circum- 
stances of  aggravation  are  wanting  which  rendered 
this  rigorous  interposition  necessary.  Upon  this  plan, 
it  is  enough  to  vindicate  the  lenity  of  the  laws,  that 
some  instances  are  to  be  found  in  each  class  of  c&pi- 


CRIMES  AND  PUNISHMENTS.  159 

tal  crimes,  which  required  the  restraint  of  capital  pun- 
ishment, and  that  this  restraint  could  not  be  applied 
without  subjecting  the  whole  class  to  the  same  con- 
demnation. 

There  is  however  one  species  of  crimes,  the  making 
of  which  capital  can  hardly,  I  think,  be  defended  even 
upon  the  comprehensive  principle  just  now  stated — I 
mean  that  of  privately  stealing  from  the  person.  As 
every  degree  of  force  is  excluded  by  the  description 
of  the  crime,  it  will  be  difficult  to  assign  an  example, 
where  either  the  amount  or  circumstances  of  the  theft 
place  it  upon  a  level  with  those  dangerous  attempts  to 
which  the  punishment  of  death  should  be  confined. 
It  will  be  still  more  difficult  to  show,  that,  without 
gross  and  culpable  negligence  on  the  part  of  the  suf- 
ferer, such  examples  can  ever  become  so  frequent  as 
to  make  it  necessary  to  constitute  a  class  of  capital 
offences,  of  very  wide  and  large  extent. 

The  prerogative  of  pardon  is  properly  reserved  to 
the  chief  magistrate.  The  power  of  suspending  the 
laws  is  a  privilege  of  too  high  a  nature  to  be  commit- 
ted to  many  hands,  or  to  those  of  any  inferior  office 
in  the  state.  The  king  also  can  best  collect  the  ad- 
vice by  which  his  resolutions  shall  be  governed;  and 
is  at  the  same  time  removed  at  the  greatest  distance 
from  the  influence  of  private  motives.  But  let  this 
power  be  deposited  where  it  will,  the  exercise  of  it 
ought  to  be  regarded,  not  as  a  favour  to  be  yielded  to 
solicitation,  granted  to  friendship,  or,  least  of  all,  to 
be  made  subservient  to  the  conciliating  or  gratifying 
of  political  attachments,  but  as  a  judicial  act;  as  a 
deliberation  to  be  conducted  with  the  same  character 
of  impartiality,  with  the  same  exact  and  diligent  at- 
tention to  the  proper  merits  and  circumstances  of  the 
case,  as  that  which  the  judge  upon  the  bench  was  ex- 
pected to  maintain  and  show  in  the  trial  of  the  prison- 
er's guilt.  The  questions,  whether  the  prisoner  be 
guilty,  and  whether,  being  guilty,  he  ought  to  be  exe- 
cuted, are  equally  questions  of  public  justice.  The 
adjudication  of  the  latter  question  is  as  much  a  func- 
tion of  magistracy,  as  the  trial  of  the  former.  The 
public  welfare  is  interested  in  both.  The  conviction 


1€0  CRIMES  AND  PUNISHMENTS. 

of  an  offender  should  depend  upon  nothing  but  the 
proof  of  his  guilt;  nor  the  execution  of  the  sentence 
upon  any  thing  beside  the  quality  and  circumstances 
of  his  crime.  It  is  necessary  to  the  good  order  of 
society,  and  to  the  reputation  and  authority  of  go- 
vernment, that  this  be  known  and  believed  to  be  the 
case  in  each  part  of  the  proceeding.  Which  reflec- 
tions show,  that  the  admission  of  extrinsic  or  oblique 
considerations  in  dispensing  the  power  of  pardon,  is  a 
crime,  in  the  authors  and  advisers  of  such  unmerited 
partiality,  of  the  same  nature  with  that  of  corruption 
in  a  judge. 

Aggravations,  which  ought  to  guide  the  magistrate 
in  the  selection  of  objects  of  condign  punishment,  are 
principally  these  three — repetition,  cruelty,  combina* 
tion.  The  first  two,  it  is  manifest,  add  to  every  rea- 
son upon  which  the  justice  or  the  necessity  of  rigor- 
ous measures  can  be  founded;  and  with  respect  to 
the  last  circumstance,  it  may  be  observed,  that  when 
thieves  and  robbers  are  once  collected  into  gangs, 
their  violence  becomes  more  formidable,  the  con- 
federates more  desperate,  and  the  difficulty  of  defend- 
ing the  public  against  their  depredations  much  greater 
than  in  the  case  of  solitary  adventurers.  Which 
several  considerations  compose  a  distinction  that  is 
properly  adverted  to  in  deciding  upon  the  fate  of  con- 
victed  malefactors. 

In  crimes,  however,  which  are  perpetrated  by  a 
multitude,  or  by  a  gang,  it  is  proper  to  separate,  in 
the  punishment,  the  ringleader  from  his  followers, 
the  principal  from  his  accomplices,  and  even  the  per- 
son who  struck  the  blow,  broke  the  lock,  or  first  en- 
tered the  house,  from  those  who  joined  him  in  the 
felony;  not  so  much  on  account  of  any  distinction  in 
the  guilt  of  the  offenders,  as  for  the  sake  of  casting  an 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  such  confederacies,  by  render- 
ing it  difficult  for  the  confederates  to  settle  who  shall 
begin  the  attack,  or  to  find  a  man  amongst  their  num- 
ber willing  to  expose  himself  to  greater  danger  than 
his  associates.  This  is  another  instance  in  which  the 
punishment  which  expediency  directs  does  not  pursue 
the  exact  proportion  of  the  crime. 


CRIMES  AND  PUNISHMEBTTS.  161 

Injuries  effected  by  terror  and  violence  are  those 
which  it  is  the  first  and  chief  concern  of  legal  govern- 
ment to  repress;  because  their  extent  is  unlimited; 
because  no  private  precaution  can  protect  the  subject 
against  them;  because  they  endanger  life  and  safety 
as  well  as  property;  and,  lastly,  because  they  render 
the  condition  of  society  wretched,  by  a  sense  of  per- 
sonal insecurity.  These  reasons  do  not  apply  to  frauds 
which  circumspection  may  prevent;  which  must  wait 
for  opportunity;  which  can  proceed  only  to  certain 
limits;  and  by  the  apprehension  of  which,  although 
the  business  of  life  be  incommoded,  life  itself  is  not 
made  miserable.  The  appearance  of  this  distinction 
has  led  some  humane  writers  to  express  a  wish,  that 
capital  punishments  might  be  confined  to  crimes  of 
violence. 

In  estimating  the  comparative  malignancy  of  crimes 
of  violence,  regard  is  to  be  had  not  only  to  the  proper 
and  intended  mischief  of  crime,  but  to  the  fright  oc- 
casioned by  the  attack,  to  the  general  alarm  excited 
by  it  in  others,  and  to  the  consequences  which  may 
attend  future  attempts  of  the  same  kind.  Thus,  in 
affixing  the  punishment  of  burglary,  or  of  breaking 
into  dwelling  houses  by  night,  we  are  to  consider  not 
only  the  peril  to  which  the  most  valuable  property  is 
exposed  by  this  crime,  and  which  may  be  called  the 
direct  mischief  of  it,  but  the  danger  also  of  murder  in 
case  of  resistance,  or  for  the  sake  of  preventing  dis- 
covery; and  the  universal  dread  with  which  the  silent 
and  defenceless  hours  of  rest  and  sleep  must  be  dis- 
turbed, were  attempts  of  this  sort  to  become  frequent; 
and  which  dread  alone,  even  without  the  mischief 
which  is  the  object  of  it,  is  not  only  a  public  evil,  but 
almost  of  all  evils  the  most  insupportable.  These 
circumstances  place  a  difference  between  the  breaking 
into  a  dwelling-house  by  day  and  by  night;  which 
difference  obtains  in  the  punishment  of  the  offence  by 
the  law  of  Moses,  and  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the 
judicial  codes  of  most  countries,  from  the  earliest  ages 
to  the  present. 

Of  frauds  or  of  injuries  which  are  effected  without 
force,  the  most  noxious  kinds  are, — forgeries,  coun- 

VOL.  II.  14  * 


162  CRIMES*  AND   PUNISHMENTS. 

forfeiting  or  diminishing  of  the  coin,  and  the  stealing 
ef  letters  in  the  course  of  their  conveyance;  inasmuch 
as  these  practices  tend  to  deprive  the  public  of  ac- 
commodations, which  not  only  improve  the  conve- 
niencies  of  social  life,  but  are  essential  to  the  pros- 
perity, and  even  the  existence  of  commerce.  Of 
these  crimes  it  may  be  said,  that  although  they  seem 
to  affect  property  alone,  the  mischief  of  their  opera- 
tion does  not  terminate  there.  For  let  it  be  supposed, 
that  the  remissness  or  lenity  of  the  laws  should,  in 
any  country,  suffer  offences  of  this  sort  to  grow  into 
such  a  frequency  as  to  render  the  use  of  money,  the 
circulation  of  bills,  or  the  public  conveyance  of  letters, 
no  longer  safe  or  practicable;  what  would  follow,  but 
that  every  species  of  trade  and  of  activity  must  de- 
cline under  these  discouragements;  the  sources  of 
subsistence  fail,  by  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try are  supported;  the  country  itself,  where  the  inter- 
course of  civil  life  was  so  endangered  and  defective, 
be  deserted;  and  that,  beside  the  distress  and  poverty 
which  the  loss  of  employment  would  produce  to  the 
industrious  and  valuable  part  of  the  existing  com- 
munity, a  rapid  depopulation  must  take  place,  each 
generation  becoming  less  numerous  than  the  last;  till 
solitude  and  barrenness  overspread  the  land;  until  a 
'desolation  similar  to  what  obtains  in  many  countries 
of  Asia,  which  were  once  the  most  civilized  and  fre- 
quented parts  of  the  world,  succeed  in  the  place  of 
crowded  cities,  of  cultivated  fields,  of  happy  and  well 
peopled  regions  ?  When  therefore  we  carry  forward, 
our  views  to  the  more  distant,  but  not  less  certain, 
consequences  of  these  crimes,  we  perceive  tlrat, 
though  no  living  creature  be  destroyed  by  them,  yet 
human  life  is  diminished;  that  an  offence, the  particu- 
lar consequence  of  which  deprives  only  an  individual 
of  a  small  portion  of  his  property,  and  which  even 
in  its  general  tendency  seems  to  do  nothing  more 
than  obstruct  the  enjoyment  of  certain  public  conve- 
niences, may  nevertheless,  by  its  ultimate  effects,  con- 
clude in  the  laying  waste  of  human  existence/  This 
observation  will  enable  those  who  regard  the  divine 
rule  of  "life  for  life,  and  blood  for  blood,"  as  the 


CRIMES  AND  PUNISHMENTS.  163 

only  authorized  and  justifiable  measure  of  capital 
punishment,  to  perceive,  with  respect  to  the  effects 
and  quality  of  the  actions,  a  greater  resemblance  than 
they  suppose  to  exist  between  certain  atrocious  frauds, 
and  those  crimes  which  attack  personal  safety. 

In  the  case  of  forgeries,  there  appears  a  substantial 
difference  between  the  forging  of  bills  of  exchange,  or 
of  securities  which  are  circulated,  and  of  which  the 
circulation  and  currency  are  found  to  serve  and  facili- 
tate valuable  purposes  of  commerce;  and  the  forging 
of  bonds,  leases,  mortgages,  or  of  instruments  which 
are  not  commonly  transferred  from  one  hand  to 
another;  because,  in  the  former  case,  credit  is  neces- 
sarily given  to  the  signature,  and  without  that  credit 
the  negotiation  of  such  property  could  not  be  carried 
on,  nor  the  public  utility,  sought  from  it,  be  attained: 
in  the  other  case,  all  possibility  of  deceit  might  be 
precluded,  by  a  direct  communication  between  the 
parties,  or  by  due  care  in  the  choice  of  their  agents, 
with  little  interruption  to  business,  arid  without  de- 
stroying or  much  encumbering  the  uses  for  which 
these  instruments  are  calculated.  This  distinction  I 
apprehend  to  be  not  only  real,  but  precise  enough  to 
afford  a  line  of  division  between  forgeries,  which,  as 
the  law  now  stands,  are  almost  universally  capital, 
and  punished  with  undistinguishing  severity. 

Perjury  is  another  crime  of  the  same  class  and  mag- 
nitude. And  when  we  consider  what  reliance  is  ne- 
cessarily placed  upon  oaths;  that  all  judicial  decisions 
proceed  upon  testimony;  that  consequently  there  is 
not  a  right  that  a  man  possesses,  of  which  false  wit- 
nesses may  not  deprive  him;  that  reputation,  pro- 
perty, and  life  itself  lie  open  to  the  attempts  of  per- 
jury; that  it  may  often  be  committed  without  a  possi- 
bility of  contradiction  or  discovery;  that  the  success 
and  prevalency  of  this  vice  tend  to  introduce  the  most 
grievous  and  fatal  injustice  into  the  administration  of 
human  affairs,  or  such  a  distrust  of  testimony  as  must 
create  universal  embarrassment  and  confusion; — when 
we  reflect  upon  these  mischiefs,  we  shall  be  brought, 
probably,  to  agree  with  the  opinion  of  those  who  con- 
tend that  perjury,  in  its  punishment,  especially  that 


164  CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS. 

which  is  attempted  in  solemn  evidence,  and  in  the 
face  of  a  court  of  justice,  should  be  placed  upon  a 
level  with  the  most  flagitious  frauds. 

The  obtaining  of  money  by  secret  threats,  whether 
we  regard  the  difficulty  with  which  the  crime  is  traced 
out,  the  odious  imputations  to  which  it  may  lead,  or 
the  profligate  conspiracies  that  ape  sometimes  formed 
to  carry  it  into  execution,  deserves  to  be  reckoned 
amongst  the  worst  species  of  robbery. 

The  frequency  of  capital  executions  in  this  country 
owes  its  necessity  to  three  causes;  much  liberty, 
great  cities,  and  the  want  of  a  punishment  short  of 
death,  possessing  a  sufficient  degree  of  terror.  And 
if  the  taking  away  of  the  life  of  malefactors  be  more 
rare  in  other  countries  than  in  ours,  the  reason  will 
be  found  in  some  difference  in  these  articles.  The 
liberties  of  a  free  people,  and  still  more  the  jealousy 
with  which  these  liberties  are  watched,  and  by  which 
they  are  preserved,  permit  not  those  precautions  and 
restraints,  that  inspection,  scrutiny,  and  control,  which 
are  exercised  with  success  in  arbitrary  governments. 
For  example,  neither  the  spirit  of  the  laws,  nor  of  the 
people,  will  suffer  the  detention  or  confinement  of  sus- 
pected persons,  without  proofs  of  their  guilt,  which  it 
is  often  impossible  to  obtain;  nor  will  they  allow  that 
masters  of  families  be  obliged  to  record  and  render 
up  a  description  of  the  strangers  or  inmates  whom 
they  entertain;  nor  that  an  account  be  demanded,  at 
the  pleasure  of  the  magistrate,  of  each  man's  time, 
employment,  and  means  of  subsistence;  nor  securi- 
ties to  be  required  when  these  accounts  appear  unsat- 
isfactory or  dubious;  nor  men  to  be  apprehended 
upon  the  mere  suggestion  of  idleness  or  vagrancy; 
nor  to  be  confined  to  certain  districts;  nor  the  inhab-/ 
itarits  of  each  district  to  be  made  responsible  for  one( 
another's  behaviour;  nor  passports  to  be  exacted  from 
all  persons  entering  or  leaving  the  kingdom:  least  of 
all  will  they  tolerate  the  appearance  of  an  armed  force, 
or  of  military  law;  or  suffer  the  streets  and  public 
roads  to  be  guarded  and  patroled  by  soldiers;  or, 
lastly,  intrust  the  police  with  such  discretionary 
powers  as  may  make  sure  of  the  guilty,  however  they 


CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS.  165 

involve  the  innocent.  These  expedients,  although 
arbitrary  and  rigorous,  are  many  of  them  effectual; 
and,  in  proportion  as  they  render  the  commission  or 
concealment  of  crimes  more  difficult,  they  subtract 
from  the  necessity  of  severe  punishment. —  Great 
cities  multiply  crimes,  by  presenting  easier  opportu- 
nities, and  more  incentives  to  libertinism,  which  in 
low  life  is  commonly  the  introductory  stage  to  other 
enormities;  by  collecting  thieves  and  robbers  into  the 
same  neighbourhood,  which  enables  them  to  form 
communications  and  confederacies  that  increase  their 
art  and  courage,  as  well  as  strength  and  wickedness; 
but  principally  by  the  refuge  they  afford  to  villany,  in 
the  means  of  concealment,  and  of  subsisting  in  secrecy, 
which  crowded  towns  supply  to  men  of  every  descrip- 
tion. These  temptations  and  facilities  can  only  be 
counteracted  by  adding  to  the  number  of  capital  pun- 
ishments.— But  a  third  cause  which  increases  the  fre- 
quency of  capital  executions  in  England  is  a  defect 
of  the  laws,  in  not  being  provided  with  any  other 
punishment  than  that  of  death,  sufficiently  terrible  to 
keep  offenders  in  awe.  Transportation,  which  is  the 
sentence  second  in  the  order  of  severity,  appears  to 
me  to  answer  the  purpose  of  example  very  imper- 
fectly; not  only  because  exile  is  in  reality  a  slight 
punishment  to  those  who  have  neither  property,  nor 
friends,  nor  reputation,  nor  regular  means  of  subsis- 
tence at  home;  and  because  their  situation  becomes 
little  worse  by  their  crime  than  it  was  before  they 
committed  it;  but  because  the  punishment,  whatever 
it  be,  is  unobserved  and  unknown.  A  transported 
convict  may  suffer  under  his  sentence,  but  his  suffer- 
ings are  removed  from  the  view  of  his  countrymen; 
his  misery  is  unseen;  his  condition  strikes  no  terror 
into  the  minds  of  those  for  whose  warning  and  admo- 
nition it  was  intended.  This  chasm  in  the  scale  of 
punishment  produces  also  two  further  imperfections 
in  the  administration  of  penal  justice: — the  first  is, 
that  the  same  punishment  is  extended  to  crimes  of 
very  different  character  and  malignancy;  the  second, 
that  punishments  separated  by  a  great  interval,  are 


ICG  CRIMES   AND   PUNISHMENT 

assigned  to  crimes  hardly  distinguishable  in  their 
gailt  and  mischief. 

The  end  of  punishment  is  twofold; — amendment 
and  example.  In  the  first  of  these,  the  reformation 
of  criminals,  little  has  ever  heen  effected,  and  little, 
I  fear,  is  practicable.  From  every  species  of  punish- 
ment that  has  hitherto  been  devised,  from  imprison- 
ment and  exile,  from  pain  and  infamy,  malefactors 
return  more  hardened  in  their  crimes,  and  more  in- 
structed. If  there  be  any  thing  that  shakes  the  soul 
of  a  confirmed  villain,  it  is  the  expectation  of  ap- 
proaching death.  The  horrors  of  this  situation  may 
cause  such  a  wrench  in  the  mental  organs  as  to  give 
them  a  holding  turn:  and  I  think  it  probable,  that 
many  of  those  who  are  executed  would,  if  they  were 
delivered  at  the  point  of  death,  retain  such  a  remem- 
brance of  their  sensations  as  might  preserve  them, 
unless  urged  by  extreme  want,  from  relapsing  into 
their  former  crimes.  But  this  is  an  experiment  that, 
from  its  nature,  cannot  be  repeated  often. 

Of  the  reforming  punishments  which  have  not  yet 
been  tried,  none  promises  so  much  success  as  that  of 
solitary  imprisonment,  or  the  confinement  of  criminals 
in  separate  apartments.  This  improvement  augments 
the  terror  of  the  punishment;  secludes  the  criminal 
from  the  society  of  his  fellow-prisoners,  in  which  so- 
ciety the  worse  are  sure  to  corrupt  the  better;  weans 
him  from  the  knowledge  of  his  companions,  and  from 
the  love  of  that  turbulent  precarious  life,  in  which 
his  vices  had  engaged  him;  is  calculated  to  raise  up 
in  him  reflections  on  the  folly  of  his  choice,  and  to 
dispose  his  mind  to  such  bitter  and  continued  peni- 
tence as  may  produce  a  lasting  alteration  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  his  conduct. 

As  aversion  to  labour  is  the  cause  from  which  half 
of  the  vices  of  low  life  deduce  their  origin  and  con- 
tinuance, punishments  ought  to  be  contrived  with  a 
view  to  the  conquering  of  this  disposition.  Two  op- 
posite expedients  have  been  recommended  for  this 
purpose;  the  one,  solitary  confinement  with  hard  la- 
bour; the  other,  solitary  confinement  with  nothing  to 
do.  Both  expedients  seek  the  same  end — to  reconcile 


CRIMES  AND   PUNISHMENTS.  167 

the  idle  to  a  life  of  industry.  The  former  hopes  to 
effect  this  by  making  labour  habitual;  the  latter,  by 
making  idleness  insupportable:  and  the  preference  of 
one  method  to  the  other  depends  upon  the  question, 
whether  a  man  is  more  likely  to  betake  himself,  of 
his  own  accord,  to  work,  who  has  been  accustomed 
to  employment,  or  who  has  been  distressed  by  the 
want  of  it.  When  gaols  are  once  provided  for  the 
separate  confinement  of  prisoners,  which  both  propo- 
sals require,  the  choice  between  them  may  soon  be 
determined  by  experience.  If  labour  be  exacted,  I 
would  leave  the  whole,  or  a  portion,  of  the  earnings 
to  the  prisoner's  use,  and  I  would  debar  him  from  any 
other  provision  or  supply;  that  his  subsistence,  how- 
ever coarse  and  penurious,  may  be  proportioned  to  his 
diligence,  and  that  he  may  taste  the  advantage  of  in- 
dustry together  with  the  toil.  I  would  go  further; 
I  would  measure  the  confinement,  not  by  the  duration 
of  time,  but  by  quantity  of  work,  in  order  both  to 
excite  industry,  and  to  render  it  more  voluntary. 
But  the  principal  difficulty  remains  still;  namely, 
how  to  dispose  of  criminals  after  their  enlargement. 
By  a  rule  of  life,  which  is  perhaps  too  invariably  and 
indiscriminately  adhered  to,  no  one  will  receive  a 
man  or  woman  out  of  a  gaol  into  any  service  or  em- 
ployment whatever.  This  is  the  common  misfortune 
of  public  punishments,  that  they  preclude  the  offender 
from  all  honest  means  of  future  support.*  It  seems 
incumbent  upon  the  state  to  secure  a  maintenance 
to  those  who  are  willing  to  work  for  it;  and  yet  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  divide  criminals  as  far  asun- 
der from  one  another  as  possible.  Whether  male 
prisoners  might  not,  after  the  term  of  their  confine- 
ment was  expired,  be  distributed  in  the  country,  de- 
tained within  certain  limits,  and  employed  upon  the 
public  roads;  and  females  be  remitted  to  the  over- 


*  Until  this  inconvenience  be  remedied,  small  offences  had 
perhaps  better  go  unpunished  :  I  do  not  mean  that  the  law 
should  exempt  them  from  punishment,  but  that  private  per- 
sons should  be  tender  in  prosecuting  them. 


168  CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS. 

eeers  of  country  parishes,  to  he  there  furnished  with 
dwellings,  and  with  the  materials  and  implements  of 
occupation; — whether  by  these,  or  by  what  other  me- 
thods it  may  be  possible  to  effect  the  two  purposes 
of  employment  and  dispersion  ;  well  merits  the  atten- 
tion of  all  who  are  anxious  to  perfect  the  internal  re- 
gulation of  their  country. 

Torture  is  applied  either  to  obtain  confessions  of 
guilt,  or  to  exasperate  or  prolong  the  pains  of  death. 
No  bodily  punishment,  however  excruciating  or  long 
continued,  receives  the  name  of  torture,  unless  it  be 
designed  to  kill  the  criminal  by  a  more  lingering 
death;  or  to  extort  from  him  the  discovery  of  some 
secret,  which  is  supposed  to  lie  concealed  in  his  breast. 
The  question  by  torture  appears  to  be  equivocal  in 
its  effects:  for  since  extremity  of  pain,  and  not  any 
consciousness  of  remorse  in  the  mind  produces  those 
effects,  an  innocent  man  may  sink  under  the  torment 
as  well  as  he  who  is  guilty.  The  latter  has  as  much 
to  fear  from  yielding  as  the  former.  The  instant  and 
almost  irresistible  desire  of  relief  may  draw  from  one 
sufferer  false  accusations  of  himself  or  others,  as  it 
may  sometimes  extract  the  truth  out  of  another.  This 
ambiguity  renders  the  use  of  torture,  as  a  means  of 
procuring  information  in  criminal  proceedings,  liable 
to  the  risk  of  grievous  and  irreparable  injustice.  For 
which  reason,  though  recommended  by  ancient  and 
general  example,  it  has  been  properly  exploded  from 
the  mild  and  cautious  system  of  penal  jurisprudence 
established  in  this  country. 

Barbarous  spectacles  of  human  agony  are  justly 
found  fault  with,  as  tending  to  harden  and  deprave 
the  public  feelings,  and  to  destroy  that  sympathy 
with  which  the  sufferings  of  our  fellow  creatures 
ought  always  to  be  seen;  or,  if  no  effect  of  this  kind 
follow  from  them,  they  counteract  in  some  measure 
their  own  design,  by  sinking  men's  abhorrence  of  the 
crime  in  their  commiseration  of  the  criminal.  But 
if  a  mode  of  execution  could  be  devised,  which  would 
augment  the  horror  of  the  punishment  without  offend- 
ing or  impairing  the  public  sensibility  by  cruel  or 
unseemly  exhibitions  of  death,  it  might  add  some- 


CRIMES    AND    PUNISHMENTS.  169 

thing  to  the  efficacy  of  the  example;  and,  by  being 
reserved  for  a  few  atrocious  crimes,  might  also  en- 
large the  scale  of  punishment;  an  addition  to  which 
seems  wanting:  for,  as  the  matter  remains  at  present, 
you  hang  a  malefactor  for  a  simple  robbery,  and  can 
do  no  more  to  the  villain  who  has  poisoned  his  father. 
Somewhat  of  the  sort  we  have  been  describing  was 
the  proposal,  not  long  since  suggested,  of  casting 
murderers  into  a  den  of  wild  beasts,  where  they  would 
perish  in  a  manner  dreadful  to  the  imagination,  yet 
concealed  from  the  view. 

Infamous  punishments  are  mismanaged  in  this 
country,  with  respect  both  to  the  crimes  and  the  crimi- 
nals. In  the  first  place,  they  ought  to  be  confined 
to  offences  which  are  holden  in  undisputed  and  uni- 
versal detestation  To  condemn  to  the  pillory  the 
author  or  editor  of  a  libel  against  the  state,  who  has 
rendered  himself  the  favourite  of  a  party,  if  not  of  the 
people,  by  the  very  act  for  which  he  stands  there,  is 
to  gratify  the  offender,  and  to  expose  the  laws  to 
mockery  and  insult.  In  the  second  place,  the  delin- 
quents who  receive  this  sentence  are  for  the  most 
part  such  as  have  long  ceased  either  to  value  reputa- 
tion or  to  fear  shame;  of  whose  happiness,  and  of 
whose  enjoyments,  character  makes  no  part.  Thus 
the  low  ministers  of  libertinism,  the  keepers  of 
bawdy  or  disorderly  houses,  are  threatened  in  vain 
with  a  punishment  that  affects  a  sense  which  they 
have  not;  that  applies  solely  to  the  imagination,  to 
the  virtue  and  the  pride  of  human  nature.  The  pil- 
lory or  any  other  infamous  distinction  might  be  em- 
ployed rightly,  and  with  effect,  in  the  punishment  of 
some  offences  of  higher  life;  as  of  frauds  and  pecu- 
lation in  office;  of  collusions  and  connivances,  by 
which  the  public  treasury  is  defrauded;  of  breaches 
of  trust;  of  perjury  and  subornation  of  perjury;  of 
the  clandestine  and  forbidden  sale  of  places;  of  fla- 
grant abuses  of  authority,  or  neglect  of  duty;  and, 
lastly,  of  corruption  in  the  exercise  of  confidential 
or  judicial  offices.  In  all  which,  the  more  elevated 
was  the  station  of  the  criminal,  the  more  signal  and 
conspicuous  would  be  thy  triumph  of  justice. 

VOL.  II.  15 


170  CRIMES   AND   PUNISHMENTS. 

The  certainty  of  punishment  is  of  more  conse- 
quence than  the  severity.  Criminals  do  not  so  much 
flatter  themselves  with  the  lenity  of  the  sentence  as 
with  the  hope  of  escaping.  They  are  not  so  apt  to 
compare  what  they  gain  by  the  crime  with  what  they 
may  suffer  from  the  punishment,  as  to  encourage 
themselves  with  the  chance  of  concealment  or  flight. 
For  which  reason,  a  vigilant  magistracy,  an  accurate 
police,  a  proper  distribution  of  force  and  intelligence, 
together  with  due  rewards  for  the  discovery  and  ap- 
prehension of  malefactors,  and  an  undeviating  impar- 
tiality in  carrying  the  laws  into  execution,  contribute 
more  to  the  restraint  and  suppression  of  crimes  than 
any  violent  exacerbations  of  punishment.  And,  for 
the  same  reason,  of  all  contrivances  directed  to  this 
end,  those  perhaps  are  most  effectual  which  facilitate 
the  conviction  of  criminals.  The  offence  of  counter- 
feiting the  coin  could  not  be  checked  by  all  the  ter- 
rors and  the  utmost  severity  of  law,  whilst  the  act  of 
coining  was  necessary  to  be  established  by  specific 
proof.  The  statute  which  made  possession  of  the  im- 
plements of  coining  capital,  that  is,  which  constituted 
that  possession  complete  evidence  of  the  offender's 
guilt,  was  the  first  thing  that  gave  force  and  efficacy 
to  the  denunciations  of  law  upon  this  subject.  The 
statute  of  James  the  First,  relative  to  the  murder  of 
bastard  children,  which  ordains  that  the  concealment 
of  the  birth  should  be  deemed  incontestable  proof  of 
the  charge,  though  a  harsh  law,  was,  in  like  manner 
with  the  former,  well  calculated  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
crime. 

[t  is  upon  the  principle  of  this  observation,  that  I 
apprehend  much  harm  to  have  been  done  to  the  com- 
munity, by  the  overstrained  scrupulousness,  or  weak 
timidity,  of  juries,  which  demands  often  such  proof  of 
a  prisoner's  guilt  as  the  nature  -and  secrecy  of  his 
crime  scarce  possibly  admit  of ;  and  which  holds  it 
the  part  of  a  safe  conscience  not  to  condemn  any  man, 
whilst  there  exists  the  minutest  possibility  of  his  inno- 
cence. Any  story  they  may  happen  to  have  heard  or 
read,  whether  real  or  feigned,  in  which  courts  of  jus- 
tice have  been  misled  by  presumptions  of  guilt,  is 


CRIMES  AND   PUNISHMENTS.  171 

enough.,  in  their  minds,  to  found  an  acquittal  upon, 
where  positive  proof  is  wanting.  I  do  not  mean  that 
juries  should  indulge  conjectures,  should  magnify  sus- 
picions into  proofs,  or  even  that  they  should  weigh 
probabilities  in  gold  scales :  but  when  the  preponde- 
ration  of  evidence  is  so  manifest  as  to  persuade  every 
private  understanding  of  the  prisoner's  guilt;  when  it 
furnishes  ihe  degree  of  credibility  upon  which  men 
decide  and  act  in  all  other  doubts,  and  which  expe- 
rience hath  shown  that  they  may  decide  and  act  upon 
M-ith  sufficient  safety:  to  reject  such  proof,  from  an 
insinuation  of  the  uncertainty  that  belongs  to  all  hu- 
man affairs,  and  from  a  general  dread  lest  the  charge 
of  innocent  blood  should  lie  at  their  doors,  is  a  con- 
duct which,  however  natural  to  a  mind  studious  of  its 
own  quiet,  is  authorized  by  no  considerat:ons  of  recti- 
tude or  utility.  It  counteracts  the  care.,  and  damps 
the  activity  of  government;  it  holds  out  public  en- 
couragement to  villany,  by  confessing  the  impossibility 
of  bringing  villains  to  justice;  and  that,  species  of  en- 
couragement which,  as  hath  been  just  now  observed, 
the  minds  of  such  men  are  most  apt  to  entertain  and 
dwell  upon. 

There  are  two  popular  maxims,  which  seem  to  have 
a  considerable  influence  in  producing  the  injudicious 
acquittals  of  which  we  complain.  One  is, — "  that 
circumstantial  evidence  falls  short  of  positive  proof." 
This  assertion,  in  the  unqualified  sense  in  which  it  is 
applied,  is  not  true.  A  concurrence  of  well  authenti- 
cated circumstances  composes  a  stronger  ground  of 
assurance  than  positive  testimony,  unconfirmed  by 
circumstances  usually  affords.  Circumstances  cannot 
lie.  The  conclusion  also  which  results  from  them, 
though  deduced  by  only  probable  inference,  is  com- 
monly more  to  be  relied  upon  than  the  veracity  of  an 
unsupported  solitary  witness.  The  danger  of  being 
deceived  is  less,  the  actual  instances  of  deception  are 
fewer,  in  the  one  case  than  the  other.  What  is  called 
positive  proof  in  criminal  matters,  as  where  a  man 
swears  to  the  person  of  the  prisoner,  and  that  he  ac- 
tually saw  him  commit  the  crime  with  which  he  is 
charged,  may  be  founded  in  the  mistake  or  perjury  of 


172  CRIMES  AND   PUNISHMENTS. 

a  single  witness.  Such  mistakes  and  such  perjuries 
are  not  without  many  examples.  Whereas  to  impose 
upon  a  court  of  justice  a  chain  of  circumstantial  evi- 
dence, in  support  of  a  fabricated  accusation,  requires 
such  a  number  of  false  witnesses  as  seldom  meet  toge- 
ther; a  union  also  of  skill  and  wickedness  which  is 
still  more  rare;  and,  after  all,  this  species  of  proof  lies 
much  more  open  to  discussion,  and  is  more  likely,  if 
false,  to  be  contradicted,  or  to  betray  itself  by  some 
unforeseen  inconsistency,  than  that  direct  proof,  which, 
being  confined  within  the  knowledge  of  a  single  per- 
son, which,  appealing  to,  or  standing  connected  with 
no  external  or  collateral  circumstances,  is  incapable, 
by  its  very  simplicity,  of  being  confronted  with  oppo- 
site probabilities. 

The  other  maxim  which  deserves  a  similar  exami- 
nation is  this: — *'  That  it  is  better  that  ten  guilty 
persons  escape,  than  that  one  innocent  man  should 
suffer."  If  by  saying  it  is  better  be  meant  that  it  is 
more  for  the  public  advantage,  the  proposition,  I  think, 
cannot  be  maintained.  The  security  of  civil  life, 
which  is  essential  to  the  value  and  the  enjoyment  of 
every  blessing  it  contains,  and  the  interruption  of 
which  is  followed  by  universal  misery  and  confusion, 
is  protected  chiefly  by  the  dread  of  punishment.  The 
misfortune  of  an  individual  (for  such  may  the  suffer- 
ings, or  even  the  death,  of  an  innocent  person  be 
called,  when  they  are  occasioned  by  no  evil  intention) 
cannot  be  placed  in  competition  with  this  object.  I 
do  not  contend  that  the  life  or  safety  of  the  meanest 
subject  ought,  in  any  case,  to  be  knowingly  sacrificed: 
no  principle  of  judicature,  no  end  of  punishment,  can 
ever  require  that.  But  when  certain  rules  of  adjudi- 
cation must  be  pursued,  when  certain  degrees  of  cre- 
dibility must  be  accepted,  in  order  to  reach  the  crimes 
with  which  the  public  are  infested;  courts  of  justice 
should  not  be  deterred  from  the  application  of  these 
rules,  by  every  suspicion  of  danger,  or  by  the  mere 
possibility  of  confounding  the  innocent  with  the  guilty. 
They  ought  rather  to  reflect,  that  he  who  falls  by  a 
mistaken  sentence  may  be  considered  as  falling  for 


RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS,  &C.  173 

his  country,  whilst  he  suffers  under  the  operation  of 
those  rules,  by  the  general  effect  and  tendency  of 
which  the  welfare  of  the  community  is  maintained 
and  upholden. 


CHAPTER  X. 

OF  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS,  AND  OP 
TOLERATION. 

"  A  RELIGIOUS  establishment  is  no  part  of  Chris- 
tianity; it  is  only  the  means  of  inculcating  it."  Amongst 
the  Jews,  the  rights  and  offices,  the  order,  family,  and 
succession  of  the  priesthood  were  marked  out  by  the 
authority  which  declared  the  law  itself.  These,  there- 
fore, were  parts  of  the  Jewish  religion,  as  well  as  the 
means  of  transmitting  it.  Not  so  with  the  new  insti- 
tution. It  cannot  be  proved  that  any  form  of  church- 
government  was  laid  down  in  the  Christian,  as  it  had 
been  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  with  a  view  of  fixing  a 
constitution  for  succeeding  ages;  and  which  consti- 
tution, consequently,  the  disciples  of  Christianity 
would  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  by  the  very  law 
of  their  religion,  be  obliged  to  adopt.  Certainly,  no 
command  for  this  purpose  was  delivered  by  Christ 
himself:  and  if  it  be  shown  that  the  apostles  ordained 
bishops  and  presbyters  amongst  their  first  converts,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  deacons  also  and  deacon- 
esses were  appointed  by  them,  with  functions  very 
dissimilar  to  any  which  obtain  in  the  church  at  present. 
The  truth  seems  to  have  been,  that  such  offices  were 
at  first  erected  in  the  Christian  church,  as  the  good 
order,  the  instruction,  and  the  exigencies  of  the  society 
at  that  time  required,  without  any  intention,  at  least 
without  any  declared  design,  of  regulating  the  ap- 
pointment, authority,  or  the  distinction  of  Christian 
ministers  under  future  circumstances.  This  reserve, 
if  we  may  so  call  it,  in  the  Christian  Legislator,  is 
sufficiently  accounted  for  by  two  considerations: — 

VOL.  II.  15  * 


174  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS, 

First,  that  no  precise  constitution  could  be  framed, 
which  would  suit  with  the  condition  of  Christianity 
in  its  primitive  state,  and  with  that  which  it  was  to 
assume  when  it  should  be  advanced  into  a  national 
religion:  Secondly,  that  a  particular  designation  of 
office  or  authority  amongst  the  ministers  of  the  new 
religion  might  have  so  interfered  with  the  arrange- 
ments of  civil  policy,  as  to  have  formed,  in  somo 
countries,  a  considerable  obstacle  to  the  progress  and 
reception  of  the  religion  itself. 

The  authority  therefore  of  a  church  establishment 
is  founded  in  its  utility:  and  whenever,  upon  this 
principle,  we  deliberate  concerning  the  form,  pro- 
priety, or  comparative  excellency  of  different  estab- 
lishments, the  single  view  under  which  we  ought  to 
consider  any  of  them  is,  that  of  "  a  scheme  of  instruc- 
tion;" the  single  end  we  ought  to  propose  by  them 
is  "  the  preservation  and  communication  of  religious 
knowledge."  Every  other  idea,  and  every  other  end, 
that  have  been  mixed  with  this,  as  the  making  of  the 
church  an  engine,  or  even  an  ally,  of  the  state;  con- 
verting it  into  the  means  of  strengthening  or  diffusing 
influence ;  or  regarding  it  as  a  support  of  regal  in  oppo- 
sition to  popular  forms  of  government;  have  served 
only  to  debase  the  institution,  and  to  introduce  into 
it  numerous  corruptions  and  abuses. 

The  notion  of  a  religious  establishment  comprehends 
three  things;  a  clergy,  or  an  order  of  men  secluded 
from  other  professions  to  attend  upon  the  offices  of 
religion;  a  legal  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
clergy;  and  the  confining  of  that  provision  to  the 
teachers  of  a  particular  sect  of  Christianity.  If  any 
one  of  these  three  things  be  wanting;  if  there  be  no 
clergy,  as  amongst  the  Quakers;  or  if  the  clergy  have 
no  other  provision  than  what  they  derive  from  the 
voluntary  contribution  of  their  hearers;  or  if  the  pro- 
vision which  the  laws  assign  to  the  support  of  religion 
be  extended  to  various  sects  and  denominations  of 
Christians;  there  exists  no  national  religion  or  esta- 
blished church,  according  to  the  sense  which  these 
terms  are  usually  made  lo  convey.  He  therefore,  who 
would  defend  ecclesiastical  establishments,  must  show 


AND  TOLERATION.  175 

the  separate  utility  of  these  three  essential  parts  of 
their  constitution. — 

1.  The  question  first  in  order  upon  the  subject,  as 
well  as  the  most  fundamental  in  its  importance,  is, 
whether  the  knowledge  and  profession  of  Christianity 
can  be  maintained  in  a  country,  without  a  class  of 
men  set  apart  by  public  authority  to  the  study  and 
teaching  of  religion,  and  to  the  conducting  of  public 
worship;  and  for  these  purposes  secluded  from  other 
employments.  I  add  this  last  circumstance,  because 
in  it  consists,  as  I  take  it,  the  substance  of  the  con- 
troversy. Now  it  must  be  remembered,  that  Chris- 
tianity is  an  historical  religion,  founded  in  facts  which 
are  related  to  have  passed,  upon  discourses  which  were 
holden,  and  letters  which  were  written,  in  a  remote 
age  and  distant  country  of  the  world,  as  well  as  under 
a  state  of  life  and  manners,  and  during  the  prevalency 
of  opinions,  customs,  and  institutions,  very  unlike  any 
which  are  found  amongst  mankind  at  present.  More- 
over, this  religion,  having  been  first  published  in  the 
country  of  Judea,  and  being  built  upon  the  more  ancient 
religion  of  the  Jews,  is  necessarily  and  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  sacred  writings,  with  the  history  and 
polity  of  that  singular  people:  to  which  must  be  added, 
that  the  records  of  both  revelations  are  preserved  in 
languages  which  have  long  ceased  to  be  spoken  in 
any  part  of  the  world.  Books  which  come  down  to 
us  from  times  so  remote,  and  under  so  many  causes 
of  unavoidable  obscurity,  cannot,  it  is  evident,  be  un- 
derstood without  study  and  preparation.  The  lan- 
guages must  be  learned.  The  various  writings  which 
these  volumes  contain  must  be  carefully  compared 
with  one  another,  and  with  themselves.  What  re- 
mains of  contemporary  authors,  or  of  authors  con- 
nected with  the  age,  the  country,  or  the  subject  of 
our  Scriptures,  must  be  perused  and  consulted,  in 
order  to  interpret  doubtful  forms  of  speech,  and  to 
explain  illusions  which  refer  to  objects  or  usages  that 
no  longer  exist.  Above  all,  the  modes  of  expression, 
the  habits  of  reasoning  and  argumentation,  which 
were  then  in  use,  and  to  which  the  discourses  oven  of 
inspired  teachers  were  necessarily  adapted,  must  be 


176  RELIGIOUS    ESTABLISHMENTS, 

mifficiently  known,  and  can  only  be  known  at  all  by 
a  due  acquaintance  with  ancient  literature.  And, 
lastly,  to  establish  the  genuineness  and  integrity  of 
the  canonical  Scriptures  themselves,  a  series  of  testi- 
mony, recognising  the  notoriety  and  reception  of  these 
books,  must  be  deduced  from  times  near  to  those  of 
their  first  publication,  down  the  succession  of  ages 
through  which  they  have  been  transmitted  to  us.  The 
qualifications  necessary  for  such  researches  demand, 
it  is  confessed,  a  degree  of  leisure,  and  a  kind  of  edu- 
cation, inconsistent  with  the  exercise  of  any  other  pro- 
fession.— But  how  few  are  there  amongst  the  clergy, 
from  whom  any  thing  of  this  sort  can  be  expected! 
ho\v  small  a  proportion  of  their  number,  who  seem 
likely  either  to  augment  the  fund  of  sacred  literature, 
or  even  to  collect  what  is  already  known! — To  this 
objection  it  may  be  replied,  that  we  sow  many  seeds 
to  raise  one  flower.  In  order  to  produce  a  few  capable 
of  improving  and  continuing  the  stock  of  Christian 
erudition,  leisure  and  opportunity  must  be  afforded  to 
great  numbers.  Original  knowledge  of  this  kind  can 
never  be  universal;  but  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance, 
and  it  is  enough,  that  there  be,  at  all  times,  found 
some  qualified  for  such  inquiries,  and  in  whose  concur- 
ring and  independent  conclusions  upon  each  subject, 
the  rest  of  the  Christian  community  may  safely  con- 
fide: whereas,  without  an  order  of  clergy  educated 
for  the  purpose,  and  led  to  the  prosecution  of  these 
studies  by  the  habits,  the  leisure,  and  the  object  of 
their  vocation,  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether  the 
learning  itself  would  not  have  been  lost,  by  which  the 
records  of  our  faith  are  interpreted  and  defended.  We 
contend,  therefore,  that  an  order  of  clergy  is  necessary 
to  perpetuate  the  evidences  of  Revelation,  and  to  in- 
terpret the  obscurity  of  those  ancient  writings  in  which 
the  religion  is  contained.  But  beside  this,  which 
forms,  no  doubt,  one  design  of  their  institution,  the 
more  ordinary  offices  of  public  teaching,  and  of  con- 
ducting public  worship,  call  for  qualifications  not 
usually  to  be  met  with  amidst  the  employments  of 
civil  life.  It  has  been  acknowledged  by  some,  who 
cannot  be  suspected  of  making  unnecessary  conces- 


AND    TOLERATION.  177 

sions  in  favour  of  establishments,  "  to  be  barely  pos- 
sible, that  a  person  who  was  never  educated  for  the 
office  should  acquit  himself  with  decency  as  a  public 
teacher  of  religion."  And  that  surely  must  be  a  very 
defective  policy  which  trusts  to  possibilities  for  suc- 
cess, when  provision  is  to  be  made  for  regular  and 
general  instruction.  Little  objection  to  this  argu- 
ment can  be  drawn  from  the  example  of  the  Quakers, 
who,  it  may  be  said,  furnish  an  experimental  proof 
that  the  worship  and  profession  of  Christianity  maybe 
upholden  without  a  separate  clergy.  These  sectaries 
every  where  subsist  in  conjunction  with  a  regular 
establishment.  They  have  access  to  the  writings, 
they  profit  by  the  labours  of  the  clergy,  in  common 
with  other  Christians.  They  participate  in  that 
general  diffusion  of  religious  knowledge,  which  the 
constant  teaching  of  a  more  regular  ministry  keeps 
up  in  the  country.  With  such  aids,  and  under  such 
circumstances,  the  defects  of  a  plan  may  not  be  much 
felt,  although  the  plan  itself  be  altogether  unfit  for 
general  imitation. 

2.  If  then  an  order  of  clergy  be  necessary,  if  it  be 
necessary  also  to  seclude  them  from  the  employments 
and  profits  of  other  professions,  it  is  evident  they 
ought  to  be  enabled  to  derive  a  maintenance  from 
their  own.  Now  this  maintenance  must  either  de- 
pend upon  the  voluntary  contributions  of  their  hearers, 
or  arise  from  revenues  assigned  by  authority  of  law. 
To  the  scheme  of  voluntary  contribution  there  exists 
this  insurmountable  objection,  that  few  would  ulti- 
mately contribute  any  thing  at  all.  However  the  zeal 
of  a  sect,  or  the  novelty  of  a  change,  might  support 
such  an  experiment  for  a  while,  no  reliance  could  be 
placed  upon  it  as  a  general  and  permanent  provision. 
It  is  at  all  times  a  bad  constitution,  which  present? 
temptations  of  interest  in  opposition  to  the  duties  of 
religion;  or  which  makes  the  offices  of  religion  ex- 
pensive to  those  who  attend  upon  them;  or  which 
allows  pretences  of  conscience  to  be  an  excuse  for  not 
sharing  in  a  public  burden.  If,  by  declining  to  fre- 
quent religious  assemblies,  men  could  save  their 
money,  at  the  same  time  that  they  indulged  their  in- 


ITS  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS, 

dolence,  and  their  disinclination  to  exercises  of  seri- 
ousness and  reliection;  or  if,  by  dissenting  from  the 
national  religion,  they  could  be  excused  from  contri- 
buting to  the  support  of  the  ministers  of  religion;  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  many  would  take  advantage  of  the 
option  which  was  thus  imprudently  left  open  to  them, 
and  that  this  liberty  might  finally  operate  to  the  decay 
of  virtue,  and  an  irrecoverable  forgetfulness  of  all  re- 
ligion in  the  country.  Is  there  not  too  much  reason 
to  fear  that,  if  it  were  referred  to  the  discretion  of 
each  neighbourhood,  whether  they  would  maintain 
amongst  them  a  teacher  of  religion  or  not,  many  dis- 
tricts would  remain  unprovided  with  any  ?  that  with 
the  difficulties  which  encumber  every  measure  requir- 
ing the  co-operation  of  numbers,  and  where  each  in- 
dividual of  the  number  has  an  interest  secretly  plead- 
ing against  the  success  of  the  measure  itself,  associa- 
tions for  the  support  of  Christian  worship  and  instruc- 
tion would  neither  be  numerous  nor  long  continued  ? 
The  devout  and  pious  might  lament  in  vain  the  want 
or  the  distance  of  a  religious  assembly:  they  could  not 
form  or  maintain  one  without  the  concurrence  of 
neighbours  who  felt  neither  their  zeal  nor  their  libe- 
rality. 

From  the  difficulty  with  which  congregations  would 
be  established  and  upheld  upon  the  voluntary  plan, 
let  us  carry  our  thoughts  to  the  condition  of  those  who 
are  to  officiate  in  them.  Preaching,  in  time,  would 
become  a  mode  of  begging.  With  what  sincerity,  or 
with  what  dignity,  can  a  preacher  dispense  the  truths 
of  Christianity, whose  thoughts  are  perpetually  soli- 
cited to  the  reflection  how  he  may  increase  his  sub- 
scription ?  His  eloquence,  if  he  possess  any,  resem- 
bles rather  the  exhibition  of  a  player  who  is  com- 
puting the  profits  of  his  theatre  than  the  simplicity  of 
a  man  who,  feeling  himself  the  awful  expectations  of 
religion,  is  seeking  to  bring  others  to  such  a  sense 
and  understanding  of  their  duty  as  may  save  their 
souls.  Moreover,  a  little  experience  of  the  disposition 
of  the  common  people  will  in  every  country  inform  us, 
that  it  is  one  thing  to  edify  them  in  Christian  know- 
ledge, and  another  to  gratify  their  taste  for  vehement, 


AND  TOLERATION.  179 

impassioned  oratory;  that  he,  not  only  whose  success, 
but  whose  subsistence  depends  upon  collecting  and 
pleasing  a  crowd,  must  resort  to  other  arts  than  the 
acquirement  and  communication  of  sober  and  profita- 
ble instruction.  For  a  preacher  to  be  thus  at  the 
mercy  of  his  audience;  to  be  obliged  to  adapt  his  doc- 
trines to  the  pleasure  of  a  capricious  multitude;  to  be 
continually  affecting  a  style  and  manner  neither  natu- 
ral to  him,  nor  agreeable  to  his  judgment;  to  live  in 
constant  bondage  to  tyrannical  and  insolent  directors; 
are  circumstances  so  mortifying,  not  only  to  the  pride 
of  the  human  heart,  but  to  the  virtuous  love  of  inde- 
pendency, that  they  are  rarely  submitted  to  without 
a  sacrifice  of  principle  and  a  depravation  of  character; 
— at  least  it  may  be  pronounced,  that  a  ministry  so 
degraded  would  soon  fall  into  the  lowest  hands;  for  it 
would  be  found  impossible  to  engage  men  of  worth 
and  ability  in  so  precarious  and  humiliating  a  profes- 
sion. 

If,  in  deference  then  to  these  reasons,  it  be  admit- 
ted, that  a  legal  provision  for  the  clergy,  compulsory 
upon  those  who  contribute  to  it,  is  expedient;  the 
next  question  will  be,  whether  this  provision  should 
be  confined  to  one  sect  of  Christianity,  or  extended 
indifferently  to  all  ?  Now  it  should  be  observed,  that 
this  question  never  can  offer  itself  where  the  people 
are  agreed  in  their  religious  opinions;  and  that  it 
never  ought  to  arise,  where  a  system  may  be  framed 
of  doctrines  and  worship  wide  enough  to  comprehend 
their  disagreement;  and  which  might  satisfy  all,  by 
uniting  all  in  the  articles  of  their  common  faith,  and 
in  a  mode  of  divine  worship  that  omits  every  subject 
of  controversy  or  offence.  Where  such  a  comprehen- 
sion is  practicable  the  comprehending  religion  ought 
to  be  made  that  of  the  state.  But  if  this  be  despaired 
of;  if  religious  opinions  exist,  not  only  so  various,  but 
so  contradictory  as  to  render  it  impossible  to  reconcile 
them  to  each  other,  or  to  any  one  confession  of  faith, 
rule  of  discipline,  or  form  of  worship;  if,  consequently, 
separate  congregations  and  different  sects  must  un- 
avoidably continue  in  the  country:  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, whether  the  law  ought  to  establish  one 


180  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS, 

sect  in  preference  to  the  rest;  that  is,  whether  they 
ought  to  confer  the  provision  assigned  to  the  main- 
tenance of  religion  upon  the  teachers  of  one  system 
of  doctrines  alone,  becomes  a  question  of  necessary 
discussion  and  of  great  importance.  And  whatever 
we  may  determine  concerning  speculative  rights  and 
abstract  properties,  when  we  set  about  the  framing 
of  an  ecclesiastical  constitution  adapted  to  real  life, 
and  to  the  actual  state  of  religion  in  the  country, 
we  shall  find  this  question  very  nearly  related  to 
and  principally  indeed  dependent  upon  another ', 
namely,  "  In  what  way,  or  by  whom  ought  the  mi- 
nisters of  religion  to  be  appointed?"  If  the  species 
of  patronage  be  retained  to  which  we  are  accustomed 
in  this  country,  and  which  allows  private  individuals 
to  nominate  teachers  of  religion  for  districts  and  con- 
gregations to  which  they  are  absolute  strangers;  with- 
out some  test  proposed  to  the  persons  nominated,  the 
utmost  discordancy  of  religious  opinions  might  arise 
between  the  several  teachers  and  their  respective  con- 
gregations. A  popish  patron  might  appoint  a  priest 
to  say  mass  to  a  congregation  of  protestants;  an  epis- 
copal clergyman  be  sent  to  officiate  in  a  parish  of 
presbyterians;  or  a  presbyterian  divine  to  inveigh 
against  the  errors  of  popery  before  an  audience  of 
papists.  The  requisition  then  of  subscription,  or  any 
other  test  by  which  the  national  religion  is  guarded, 
may  be  considered  merely  as  a  restriction  upon  the 
exercise  of  private  patronage.  The  laws  speak  to  the 
private  patron  thus  : — '*  Of  those  whom  we  have 
previously  pronounced  to  be  fitly  qualified  to  teach 
religion,  we  allow  you  to  select  one;  but  we  do  not 
allow  you  to  decide  what  religion  shall  be  established 
in  a  particular  district  of  the  country;  for  which 
decision  you  are  nowise  fitted  by  any  qualifications 
which,  as  a  private  patron,  you  may  happen  to  pos- 
sess." If  it  be  necessary  that  the  point  be  determined 
for  the  inhabitants  by  any  other  will  than  their  own, 
it  is  surely  better  that  it  should  be  determined  by  a 
deliberate  resolution  of  the  legislature  than  by  the 
casual  inclination  of  an  individual,  by  whom  the 
right  is  purchased,  or  to  whom  it  devolves  as  a  mere 


AND    TOLERATION.  181 

seculai  inheritance.  Wheresoever,  therefore,  this 
constitution  of  patronage  is  adopted,  a  national  reli- 
gion, or  the  legal  preference  of  one  particular  religion 
to  all  others,  must  almost  necessarily  accompany  it. — 
But,  secondly,  let  it  be  supposed  that  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  minister  of  religion  was  in  every  parish 
left  to  the  choice  of  the  parishioners;  might  not  this 
choice,  we  ask,  be  safely  exercised  without  its  being 
limited  to  the  teachers  of  any  particular  sect  ?  The 
effect  of  such  a  liberty  must  be,  that  a  papist,  or  a 
presbyterian,  a  methodist,  a  moravian,  or  an  ana- 
baptist, would  successively  gain  possession  of  the  pul- 
pit, according  as  a  majority  of  the  party  happened  at 
ea*ch  election  to  prevail.  Now,  with  what  violence 
the  conflict  would  upon  every  vacancy  be  renewed; 
what  bitter  animosities  would  be  revived,  or  rather  be 
constantly  fed  and  kept  alive  in  the  neighbourhood; 
with  what  unconquerable  aversion  the  teacher  and 
his  religion  would  be  received  by  the  defeated  party; 
may  be  foreseen  by  those  who  reflect,  with  how  much 
passion  every  dispute  is  carried  on,  in  which  the 
name  of  religion  can  be  made  to  mix  itself;  much 
more  where  the  cause  itself  is  concerned  so  immedi- 
ately as  it  would  be  in  this.  Or,  thirdly,  if  the  state 
appoint  the  ministers  or  religion,  this  constitution  will 
differ  little  from  the  establishment  of  a  national  reli- 
gion; for  the  state  will,  undoubtedly,  appoint  those, 
and  those  alone,  whose  religious  opinions,  or  rather 
whose  religious  denominations,  agree  with  its  own; 
unless  it  be  thought  that  any  thing  would  be  gained 
to  religious  liberty  by  transferring  the  choice  of  the 
national  religion  from  the  legislature  of  the  country  to 
the  magistrate  who  administers  the  executive  govern- 
ment. The  only  plan  which  seems  to  render  the  legal 
maintenance  of  a  clergy  practicable,  without  the  legal 
preference  of  one  sect  of  Christians  to  others,  is  that 
of  an  experinrr**<4^riich  is  said  to  be  attempted  or 
designed  in  some  of  the  new  states  of  North  America. 
The  nature  of  the  plan  is  thus  described: — A  tax  is 
levied  upon  the  inhabitants  for  the  general  support  of 
religion;  the  collector  of  the  tax  goes  round  with  a 
register  in  his  hand,  in  which  are  inserted,  at  the 

VOL.  II.  16 


182  RELIGIOUS    ESTABLISHMENTS, 

head  of  so  many  distinct  columns,  the  names  of  the 
several  religious  sects  that  are  professed  in  the  coun- 
try. The  person  who  is  called  upon  for  the  assess- 
ment, as  soon  as  he  has  paid  his  quota,  subscribes 
his  name  and  the  sum  in  which  of  the  columns  he 
pleases;  and  the  amount  of  what  is  collected  in  each 
column  is  paid  over  to  the  minister  of  that  denomina- 
tion. In  this  scheme  it  is  not  left  to  the  option  of  the 
subject,  whether  he  will  contribute,  or  how  much 
he  shall  contribute,  to  the  maintenance  of  a  Christian 
ministry;  it  is  only  referred  to  his  choice  to  deter- 
mine by  what  sect  his  contribution  shall  be  received. 
The  above  arrangement  is  undoubtedly  the  best  that 
has  been  proposed  upon  this  principle;  it  bears  the 
appearance  of  liberality  and  justice;  it  may  contain 
some  solid  advantages;  nevertheless,  it  labours  under 
inconveniences  which  will  be  found,  I  think,  upon 
trial  to  overbalance  all  its  recommendations.  It  is 
scarcely  compatible  with  that  which  is  the  first  requi- 
site in  an  ecclesiastical  establishment, — the  division 
of  the  country  into  parishes  of  a  commodious  extent. 
If  the  parishes  be  small,  and  ministers  of  every  deno- 
mination be  stationed  in  each  (which  the  plan  seems 
to  suppose,)  the  expense  of  their  maintenance  will 
become  too  burdensome  a  charge  for  the  country  to 
support.  If.  to  reduce  the  expense,  the  districts  be 
enlarged,  the  place  of  assembling  will  oftentimes  bo 
too  far  removed  from  the  residence  of  the  persons 
who  ought  to  resort  to  it.  Again,  the  making  the 
pecuniary  success  of  the  different  teachers  of  religion 
to  depend  on  the  number  and  wealth  of  their  respec- 
tive followers  would  naturally  generate  strifes  arid 
indecent  jealousies  amongst  them;  as  well  as  produce 
a  polemical  and  proselyting  spirit,  founded  in  or 
mixed  with  views  of  private  gain,  which  would  both 
deprave  the  principles  of  the  clergy,  and  distract  the 
country  with  endless  contentions. 

The  argument,  then,  by  which  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishments are  defended,  proceeds  by  these  steps: — 
The  knowledge  and  profession  of  Christianity  cannot 
be  upholden  without  a  clergy;  a  clergy  cannot  be 
supported  without  a  legal  provision;  a  legal  provi- 


AND   TOLERATION  188 

sion  for  the  clergy  cannot  be  constituted  without  the 
preference  of  one  sect  of  Christians  to  the  rest:  and 
the  conclusion  will  be  conveniently  satisfactory  in  the 
degree  in  which  the  truth  of  these  several  propositions 
can  be  made  out. 

If  it  be  deemed  expedient  to  establish  a  national 
religion,  that  is  to  say,  one  sect  in  preference  to  all 
others;  some  test,  by  which  the  teachers  of  that  sect 
may  be  distinguished  from  the  teachers  of  different 
sects,  appears  to  be  an  indispensible  consequence. 
The  existence  of  such  an  establishment  supposes  it: 
the  very  notion  of  a  national  religion  includes  that  of 
a  test. 

But  this  necessity,  which  is  real,  hath,  according 
to  the  fashion  of  human  affairs,  furnished  to  almost 
every  church  a  pretence  for  extending,  multiplying, 
and-  continuing  such  tests,  beyond  what  the  occasion 
justified.  For  though  some  purposes  of  order  and 
tranquillity  may  be  answered  by  the  establishment  of 
creeds  and  confessions,  yet  they  are  all  at  times  attend- 
ed with  serious  inconveniencies:  they  check  inquiry; 
they  violate  liberty;  they  ensnare  the  consciences  of 
the  clergy,  by  holding  out  temptations  to  prevarica- 
tion: however  they  may  express  the  persuasion,  or  be 
accommodated  to  the  controversies  or  to  the  fears  of 
the  age  in  which  they  are  composed,  in  process  of 
time,  and  by  reason  of  the  changes  which  are  wont 
to  take  place  in  the  judgment  of  mankind  upon  reli- 
gious subjects,  they  came  at  length  to  contradict  the 
actual  opinions  of  the  church  whose  doctrines  they 
profess  to  contain;  and  they  often  perpetuate  the  pro- 
scription of  sects,  and  tenets,  from  which  any  danger 
has  long  ceased  to  be  apprehended. 

It  may  not  follow  from  these  objections,  that  tests 
and  subscriptions  ought  to  be  abolished;  but  it  fol- 
lows, that  they  ought  to  be  made  as  simple  and  easy 
as  possible;  that  they  should  be  adapted,  from  time 
to  time,  to  the  varying  sentiments  and  circumstances 
of  the  church  in  which  they  are  received;  and  that 
they  should  at  no  time  advance  one  step  further  than 
some  subsisting  necessity  requires.  If,  for  instance, 
promises  of  conformity  to  the  rites,  liturgy,  and  offices 


lS4  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS, 

of  the  church  be  sufficient  to  prevent  confusion  and 
disorder  in  the  celebration  of  divine  worship,  then 
such  promises  ought  to  be  accepted  in  the  place  of 
stricter  subscriptions. 

If  articles  of  peace,  as  they  are  called,  that  is, 
engagements  not  to  preach  certain  doctrines,  nor  to 
revive  certain  controversies,  would  exclude  indecent 
altercations  amongst  the  national  clergy,  as  well  as 
secure  to  the  public  teaching  of  religion  as  much  of 
uniformity  and  quiet  as  is  necessary  to  edification; 
then  confessions  of  faith  ought  to  be  converted  into 
articles  of  peace.  In  a  word,  it  ought  to  be  holden 
a  sufficient  reason  for  relaxing  the  terms  of  subscrip- 
tion, or  for  dropping  any  or  all  of  the  articles  to  be 
subscribed,  that  no  present  necessity  requires  the 
strictness  which  is  complained  of,  or  that  it  should  he 
extended  to  so  many  points  of  doctrine. 

The  division  of  the  country  into  districts,  and  the 
stationing  in  each  district  a  teacher  of  religion,  forms 
the  substantial  part  of  every  church  establishment. 
The  varieties  that  have  been  introduced  into  the  go- 
vernment and  discipline  of  different  churches  are  of 
inferior  importance,  when  compared  with  this,  in 
which  they  all  agree.  Of  these  economical  questions, 
none  seems  more  material  than  that  which  has  been 
long  agitated  in  the  reformed  churches  of  Christen- 
dom, whether  a  parity  amongst  the  clergy,  or  a  dis- 
tinction of  orders  in  the  ministry,  be  more  conducive 
to  the  general  ends  of  the  institution.  In  favour  of 
that  system  which  the  laws  of  this  country  have  pre- 
ferred, we  may  allege  the  following  reasons: — that  it 
secures  tranquillity  and  subordination  amongst  the 
clergy  themselves;  that  it  corresponds  with  the  gra- 
dations of  rank  in  civil  life,  and  provides  for  the  edi- 
fication of  each  rank,  by  stationing  in  each  an  order 
of  clergy  of  their  own  class  and  quality,  and,  lastly, 
that  the  same  fund  produces  more  effect,  both  as  an 
allurement  to  men  of  talents  to  enter  into  the  church, 
and  as  a  stimulus  to  the  industry  of  those  who  are 
already  in  it,  when  distributed  into  prizes  of  different 
value,  than  when  divided  into  equal  shares. 

After  the  state  has  once  established  a  particular  sys- 


AND   TOLERATION.  166 

tern  of  faith  as  a  national  religion,  a  question  will 
soon  occur,  concerning  the  treatment  and  toleration 
of  those  who  dissent  from  it.  This  question  is  pro- 
perly preceded  by  another,  concerning  the  right  which 
the  civil  magistrate  possesses  to  interfere  in  matters 
of  religion  at  all:  for,  although  this  right  be  acknow- 
ledged whilst  he  is  employed  solely  in  providing 
means  of  public  instruction,  it  will  probably  be  dis- 
puted (indeed  it  ever  has  been,)  when  he  proceeds  to 
inflict  penalties,  to  impose  restraints  or  incapacities, 
on  the  account  of  religious  distinctions.  They  who 
admit  no  other  just  original  of  civil  government  than 
what  is  founded  in  some  stipulation  with  its  subjects, 
are  at  liberty  to  contend  that  the  concerns  of  religion 
were  excepted  out  of  the  social  compact;  that,  in  an 
affair  which  can  only  be  transacted  between  God  and 
a  man's  own  conscience,  no  commission  or  authority 
was  ever  delegated  to  the  civil  magistrate,  or  could 
indeed  be  transferred  from  the  person  himself  to  any 
other.  We,  however,  who  have  rejected  this  theory, 
because  we  cannot  discover  any  actual  contract  be- 
tween the  state  and  the  people,  and  because  we  can- 
not allow  any  arbitrary  fiction  to  be  made  the  founda- 
tion of  real  rights  and  of  real  obligations,  find  our- 
selves precluded  from  this  distinction.  The  reasoning 
which  deduces  the  authority  of  civil  government  from 
the  will  of  God,  and  which  collects  that  will  from 
public  expediency  alone,  binds  us  to  the  unreserved 
conclusion,  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  magistrate  is 
limited  by  no  consideration  but  that  of  general  utility: 
in  plainer  terms,  that  whatever  be  the  subject  to  bo 
regulated,  it  is  lawful  for  him  to  interfere  whenever 
his  interference,  in  its  general  tendency,  appears  to 
be  conducive  to  the  common  interest.  There  is  no- 
thing in  the  nature  of  religion,  as  such,  which  exempts 
it  from  the  authority  of  the  legislator,  when  the  safety 
or  welfare  of  the  community  requires  his  interposi- 
tion. It  has  been  said,  indeed,  that  religion,  pertain- 
ing to  the  interests  of  a  life  to  come,  lies  beyond  the 
province  of  civil  government,  the  office  of  which  is 
confined  to  ihe  affairs  of  this  life.  But  in  reply  to 
this  objection  it  may  be  observed,  that  when  the  laws 

VOL.  II.  16  * 


186  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS, 

interfere  even  in  religion,  they  interfere  only  with 
temporals;  their  effects  terminate,  their  power  ope- 
rates only  upon  those  rights  and  interests  which  con- 
fessedly belong  to  their  disposal.  The  acts  of  the 
legislature,  the  edicts  of  the  prince,  the  sentence  of 
the  judge  cannot  affect  my  salvation;  nor  do  they, 
without  the  most  absurd  arrogance,  pretend  to  any 
such  power:  but  they  may  deprive  me  of  liberty,  of 
property,  and  even  of  life  itself,  on  account  of  my  reli- 
gion; and  however  I  may  complain  of  the  injustice 
of  the  sentence  by  which  I  am  condemned,  I  cannot 
allege  that  the  magistrate  has  transgressed  the  boun- 
daries of  his  jurisdiction;  because  the  property,  the 
liberty,  and  the  life  of  the  subject  may  be  taken  away 
by  the  authority  of  the  laws,  for  any  reason  which, 
in  the  judgment  of  the  legislature,  renders  such  a 
measure  necessary  to  the  common  welfare.  More- 
over, as  the  precepts  of  religion  may  regulate  all  the 
offices  of  life,  or  may  be  so  construed  as  to  extend  to 
all,  the  exemption  of  religion  from  the  control  of  hu- 
man laws  might  afford  a  plea,  which  would  exclude 
civil  government  from  every  authority  over  the  con 
duct  of  its  subjects.  Religious  liberty  is,  like  civil 
liberty,  not  an  immunity  from  restraint,  but  the  being 
restrained  by  no  law  but  what  in  a  greater  degree  con- 
duces to  the  public  welfare. 

Still  it  is  right  "  to  obey  God  rather  than  man." 
Nothing  that  we  have  said  encroaches  upon  the  truth 
of  this  sacred  and  undisputed  maxim:  the  right  of 
the  magistrate  to  ordain,  and  the  obligation  of  the 
subject  to  obey,  in  matters  of  religion,  may  be  very 
different;  and  will  be  so,  as  often  as  they  flow  from 
opposite  apprehensions  of  the  Divine  will.  In  affairs 
that  are  properly  of  a  civil  nature,  in  "  the  things  that 
are  Caesar's,"  this  difference  seldom  happens.  The 
law  authorizes  the  act  which  it  enjoins;  Revelation 
being  either  silent  upon  the  subject,  or  referring  to  the 
laws  of  the  country,  or  requiring  only  that  men  act  by 
some  fixed  rule,  and  that  this  rule  be  established  by 
competent  authority.  But  when  human  laws  inter- 
pose their  direction  in  matters  of  religion;  by  dictat- 
ing, for  example,  the  object  or  the  mode  of  divine 


AND  TOLERATION.  187 

worship;  by  prohibiting  the  profession  of  some  arti- 
cles of  faith,  and  by  exacting  that  of  others,  they  are 
liable  to  clash  with  what  private  persons  believe  to  be 
already  settled  by  precepts  of  Revelation;  or  to  con- 
tradict what  God  himself,  they  think,  hath  declared 
to  be  true.  In  this  case,  on  whichever  side  the  mis- 
take lies,  or  whatever  plea  the  state  may  allege  to  jus- 
tify its  edict,  the  subject  can  have  none  to  excuse  his 
compliance.  The  same  consideration  also  points  out 
the  distinction,  as  to  the  authority  of  the  state  be- 
tween temporals  and  spirituals.  The  magistrate  is 
not  to  be  obeyed  in  temporals  more  than  in  spirituals, 
where  a  repugnancy  is  perceived  between  his  com- 
mands and  any  credited  manifestations  of  the  Divine 
will:  but  such  repugnancies  are  much  less  likely  to 
arise  in  one  case  than  the  other. 

When  we  grant  that  it  is  lawful  for  the  magistrate 
to  interfere  in  religion  as  often  as  his  interference  ap- 
pears 1o  him  to  conduce,  in  its  general  tendency,  to 
the  public  happiness;  it  may  be  argued,  from  this 
concession,  that  since  salvation  is  the  highest  interest 
of  mankind,  and  since,  consequently,  to  advance  that 
is  to  promote  the  public  happiness  in  the  best  way, 
and  in  the  greatest  degree,  in  which  it  can  be  pro- 
moted, it  follows,  that  it  is  not  only  the  right,  but  the 
fluty,  of  uvery  magistrate  invested  with  supreme  pow- 
er, to  enforce  upon  his  subjects  the  reception  of  that 
religion  which  he  deems  most  acceptable  to  God,  and 
to  enforce  it  by  such  methods  as  may  appear  most  ef- 
fectual for  the  end  proposed.  A  popish  king,  for  ex- 
ample, who  should  believe  that  salvation  is  not  attaina- 
ble out  of  the  precincts  of  the  Romish  church,  would 
derive  a  right  from  our  principles  (not  to  say  that  he 
would  be  bound  by  them)  to  employ  the  power  with 
which  the  constitution  intrusted  him,  and  which  power, 
in  absolute  monarchies,  commands  the  lives  and  for- 
tunes of  every  subject  of  the  empire,  in  reducing  his 
people  within  that  communion.  We  confess  that  this 
consequence  is  inferred  from  the  principles  we  have 
laid  down  concerning  the  foundation  of  civil  authori- 
ty, not  without  the  resemblance  of  a  regular  deduc- 
tion: we  confess  also  that  it  is  a  conclusion  which  it 


188  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENTS, 

behoves  us  to  dispose  of;  because,  if  it  really  follow 
from  our  theory  of  government,  the  theory  itself  ought 
to  l)Q  given  up.  Now  it  will  be  remembered,  that  the 
terms  of  our  proposition  are  these:  "  That  it  is  law- 
ful for  the  magistrate  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  re- 
ligion, whenever  his  interference  appears  to  him  to 
conduce,  by  its  general  tendency,  to  the  public  hap- 
piness." The  clause  of  "  general  tendency,"  when 
this  rule  comes  to  be  applied,  will  be  found  a  very 
significant  part  of  the  direction.  It  obliges  the  ma- 
gistrate to  reflect,  not  only  whether  the  religion  which 
he  wishes  to  propagate  amongst  his  subjects  be  that 
which  will  best  secure  their  eternal  welfare;  not  only, 
whether  the  methods  he  employs  be  likely  to  effec- 
tuate the  establishment  of  that  religion;  but  also  upon 
this  farther  question,  Whether  the  kind  of  interference 
which  he  is  about  to  exercise,  if  it  were  adopted  as  a 
common  maxim  amongst  states  and  princes,  or  re- 
ceived as  a  general  rule  for  the  conduct  of  government 
in  matters  of  religion,  would,  upon  the  whole,  and  in 
the  mass  of  instances  in  which  his  example  might  be 
imitated,  conduce  to  the  furtherance  of  human  salva- 
tion. If  the  magistrate,  for  example,  should  think, 
that  although  the  application  of  his  power  might,  in 
the  instance  concerning  which  he  deliberates,  ad- 
vance the  true  religion,  and  together  with  it  the  hap- 
piness of  his  people,  yet  that  the  same  engine,  in  other 
hands,  who  might  assume  the  right  to  use  it  with  the 
like  pretensions  of  reason  and  authority  that  he  him-' 
self  alleges,  would  more  frequently  shut  out  truth,  and 
obstruct  the  means  of  salvation;  he  would  be  bound 
by  this  opinion,  still  admitting  public  utility  to  be  the 
supreme  rule  of  his  conduct,  to  refrain  from  expe- 
dients, which,  whatever  particular  effects  he  may  ex- 
pect from  them,  are,  in  their  general  operation,  dan- 
gerous or  hurtful.  If  there  be  any  difficulty  in  the 
subject,  it  arises  from  that  which  is  the  cause  of  every 
difficulty  in  morals, — the  competition  of  particular 
and  general  consequences',  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
the  submission  of  one  general  rule  to  another  rulo 
which  is  still  more  general. 

Bearing  then  in  mind,  that  it  is  the  general  ten- 


AND   TOLERATION.  189 

dency  of  the  measure,  or,  in  other  words,  the  effects 
which  would  arise  from  the  measure  being  generally 
adopted,  that  fixes  upon  it  the  character  of  rectitude 
or  injustice;  we  proceed  to  inquire  what  is  the  degree 
and  the  sort  of  interference  of  secular  laws  in  matters 
of  religion,  which  are  likely  to  be  beneficial  to  the 
public  happiness.  There  are  two  maxims  which  will 
in  a  great  measure  regulate  our  conclusions  upon  this 
head.  The  first  is,  that  any  form  of  Christianity  is 
better  than  no  religion  at  all;  the  second,  that,  of  dif- 
ferent systems  of  faith,  that  is  the  best  which  is  the 
truest.  The  first  of  these  positions  will  hardly  be  dis- 
puted, when  we  reflect  that  every  sect  and  modifica- 
tion of  Christianity  holds  out  the  happiness  and  misery 
of  another  life,  as  depending  chiefly  upon  the  practice 
of  virtue  or  of  vice  in  this;  and  that  the  distinctions 
of  virtue  and  vice  are  nearly  the  same  in  all.  A  per- 
son who  acts  under  the  impression  of  these  hopes  and 
fears,  though  combined  with  many  errors  and  super- 
stitions, is  more  likely  to  advance  both  the  public 
happiness  and  his  own,  than  one  who  is  destitute  of 
all  expectation  of  a  future  account.  The  latter  pro- 
position id  founded  in  the  consideration,  that  the  prin- 
cipal importance  of  religion  consists  in  its  influence 
upon  the  fate  and  condition  of  a  future  existence. 
This  influence  belongs  only  to  that  religion  which 
comes  from  God.  A  political  religion  may  be  framed, 
which  shall  embrace  the  purposes,  and  describe  the 
duties  of  political  society  perfectly  well;  but  if  it  be 
not  delivered  by  God,  what  assurance  does  it  afford, 
that  the  decisions  of  the  Divine  judgment  will  have 
any  regard  to  the  rules  which  it  contaJns?  By  a  man 
who  acts  with  a  view  to  a  future  judgment,  the  autho- 
rity of  a  religion  is  the  first  thing  inquired  after:  a  re- 
ligion which  wants  authority,  with  him  wants  every 
thing.  Since  then  this  authority  appertains,  not  to 
the  religion  which  is  most  commodious, — to  the  reli- 
gion which  is  most  sublime  and  efficacious, — to  the 
religion  which  suits  best  with  the  form,  or  seems  most 
calculated  to  uphold  the  power  and  stability  of  civil 
government, — but  only  to  that  religion  which  comes 
from  God;  we  are  justified  in  pronouncing  the  true 


190  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS, 

religion  by  its  very  truth,  and  independently  of  all 
considerations  of  tendencies,  aptness,  or  any  other  in- 
ternal qualities  whatever,  to  be  universally  the  best. 

From  the  first  proposition  follows  this  inference, 
that  when  the  state  enables  its  subjects  to  learn  some 
form  of  Christianity,  by  distributing  teachers  of  a  reli- 
gious system  throughout  the  country,  and  by  providing 
for  the  maintenance  of  these  teachers  at  the  public 
expense;  that  is,  in  fewer  terms,  when  the  laws  esfa- 
blish  a  national  religion,  they  exercise  a  power  and  an 
interference  which  are  likely,  in  their  general  ten- 
dency, to  promote  the  interest  of  mankind:  for,  even 
supposing  the  species  of  Christianity  which  the  laws 
patronize  to  be  erroneous  and  corrupt,  yet  when  the 
option  lies  between  this  religion  and  no  religion  at  all 
(which  would  be  the  consequence  of  leaving  the  peo- 
ple without  any  public  means  of  instruction,  or  any 
regular  celebration  of  the  offices  of  Christianity,)  our 
proposition  teaches  us  that  the  former  alternative  is 
constantly  to  be  preferred. 

But  after  the  right  of  the  magistrate  to  establish  a 
particular  religion  has  been,  upon  this  principle  ad- 
mitted; a  doubt  sometimes  presents  itself,  whether  the 
religion  which  he  ought  to  establish  be  that  which  ho 
himself  professes,  or  that  which  he  observes  to  pre- 
vail amongst  the  majority  of  the  people.  Now,  when 
we  consider  this  question  with  a  view  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  general  rule  upon  the  subject  (v\hich  view 
alone  can  furnish  a  just  solution  of  the  doubt,)  it  must 
be  assumed  to  be  an  equal  chance  whether  of  the  two 
religions  contains  more  of  truth, — that  of  the  magis- 
trate, or  that  of  the  people.  The  chance  then  that  is 
left  to  truth  being  equal  upon  both  suppositions,  the 
remaining  consideration  will  be,  from  which  arrange- 
ment more  efficacy  can  be  expected; — from  an  order 
of  men  appointed  to  teach  the  people  their  own  reli- 
gion, or  to  convert  them  to  another?  In  my  opinion, 
the  advantage  lies  on  the  side  of  the  former  scheme: 
and  this  opinion,  if  it  be  assented  to,  makes  it  the 
duty  of  the  magistrate,  in  the  choice  of  the  religion 
which  he  establishes,  to  consult  the  faith  of  the  nation 
rather  than  his  own 


AND  TOLERATION  191 

The  case  also  of  dissenters  must  be  determined  by 
the  principles  just  now  stated.  Toleration  is  of  two 
kinds; — the  allowing  to  dissenters  the  unmolested 
profession  and  exercise  of  their  religion,  but  with 
an  exclusion  from  offices  of  trust  and  emolument  in 
the  state;  which  is  a  partial  toleration:  and  the 
admitting  them,  without  distinction,  to  all  the  civil 
privileges  and  capacities  of  other  citizens;  which  is 
a  complete  toleration.  The  expediency  of  toleration, 
and  consequently  the  right  of  every  citizen  to  demand 
it,  as  far  as  relates  to  liberty  of  conscience,  and  the 
claim  of  being  protected  in  the  free  and  safe  profes- 
sion of  his  religion,  is  deducible  from  the  second  of 
those  propositions  which  we  have  delivered  as  the 
grounds  of  our  conclusions  upon  the  subject.  That 
proposition  asserts  truth,  and  truth  in  the  abstract, 
to  be  the  supreme  perfection  of  every  religion.  The 
advancement,  consequently,  and  discovery  of  truth 
is  that  end  to  which  all  regulations  concerning  reli- 
gion ought  principally  to  be  adapted.  Now,  every 
species  of  intolerance  which  enjoins  suppression  and 
silence,  and  every  species  of  persecution  which  en- 
forces such  injunctions,  is  adverse  to  the  progress  of 
truth;  forasmuch  as  it  causes  that  to  be  fixed  by  one 
set  of  men,  at  one  time,  which  is  much  better,  and 
with  much  more  probability  of  success,  left  to  the 
independent  and  progressive  inquiry  of  separate  in- 
dividuals. Truth  results  from  discussion  and  from 
controversy;  is  investigated  by  the  labours  and  re- 
searches of  private  persons.  Whatever,  therefore, 
prohibits  these,  obstructs  that  industry  and  that,  liber- 
ty which  it  is  the  common  interest  of  mankind  to 
promote.  In  religion,  as  in  other  subjects,  truth,  if 
left  to  itself,  will  almost  always  obtain  the  ascendency. 
If  different  religions  be  professed  in  the  same  coun- 
try, and  the  minds  of  men  remain  unfettered  and  un- 
awed  by  intimidations  of  law,  that  religion  which 
is  founded  in  maxims  of  reason  and  credibility  will 
gradually  gain  over  the  other  to  it.  I  do  not  mean 
that  men  will  formally  renounce  their  ancient  reli- 
gion, but  that  they  will  adopt  into  it  the  more  rational 
doctrines,  the  improvements  and  discoveries  of  the 


192  RELIGIOUS  ESTABLISHMENT*, 

neighbouring  sect;  by  which  means  the  worse  reli- 
gion, without  the  ceremony  of  a  reformation,  will  in- 
sensibly assimilate  itself  to  the  better.  If  popery,  for 
instance,  and  protestantism  were  permitted  to  dwell 
quietly  together,  papists  might  not  become  protes- 
tants  (for  the  name  is  commonly  the  last  thing  that 
is  changed,*)  but  they  would  become  more  enlight- 
ened and  informed;  they  would  by  little  and  little 
incorporate  into  their  creed  many  of  the  tenets  of 
protestantism,  as  well  as  imbibe  a  portion  of  its  spirit 
and  moderation. 

The  justice  and  expediency  of  toleration  we  found 
primarily  in  its  conduciveness  to  trufh,  and  in  the 
superior  value  of  truth  to  that  of  any  other  quality 
which  a  religion  can  possess  :  this  is  the  principal 
argument;  but  there  are  some  auxiliary  considera- 
tions too  important  to  be  omitted.  The  confining  of 
the  subject  to  the  religion  of  the  state  is  a  needless 
violation  of  natural  liberty,  and  is  an  instance  in 
which  constraint  is  always  grievous.  Persecution 
produces  no  sincere  conviction,  nor  any  real  change 
of  opinion:  on  the  contrary,  it  vitiates  the  public 
morals,  by  driving  men  to  prevarication;  and  com- 
monly ends  in  a  general  though  secret  infidelity, 
by  imposing,  under  the  name  of  revealed  religion, 
systems  of  doctrine  which  men  cannot  believe,  and 
dare  not  examine:  finally,  it  disgraces  the  character, 
and  wounds  the  reputation,  of  Christianity  itself, 
by  making  it  the  author  of  oppression,  cruelty,  and 
bloodshed. 

Under  the  idea  of  religious  toleration,  I  include 
the  toleration  of  all  books  of  serious  argumentation: 
but  I  deem  it  no  infringement  of  religious  liberty  to 
restrain  the  circulation  of  ridicule,  invective,  and 
mockery,  upon  religious  subjects;  because  this  spe- 
cies of  writing  applies  solely  to  the  passions,  weakens 
the  judgment,  and  contaminates  the  imagination  of 


*  Would  we  let  the  name  stand,  we  might  often  attract 
men,  without  their  perceiving  it,  much  nearer  to  ourselves, 
than,  if  they  did  perceive  it,  they  would  be  willing  to  come. 


AND    TOLERATION.  193 

its  readers;  has  no  tendency  whatever  to  assist  either 
the  investigation  or  the  impression  of  truth;  on  the 
contrary,  whilst  it  stays  not  to  distinguish  between 
the  authority  of  different  religions,  it  destroys  alike 
the  influence  of  all. 

Concerning  the  admission  of  dissenters  from  the 
established  religion  to  offices  and  in  employments  in 
the  public  service  (which  is  necessary,  to  render 
toleration  complete,}  doubts  have  been  entertained, 
with  some  appearance  of  reason.  It  is  possible  that 
such  religious  opinions  may  be  holden  as  are  utterly 
incompatible  with  the  necessary  functions  of  civil 
government;  and  which  opinions  consequently  dis- 
qualify those  who  maintain  them  from  exercising 
any  share  in  its  administration.  There  have  been 
enthusiasts  who  held,  that  Christianity  has  abolished 
all  distinction  of  property,  arid  that  she  enjoins  upon 
her  followers  a  community  of  goods.  With  what 
tolerable  propriety  could  one  of  this  sect  be  appointed 
a  judge  or  a  magistrate,  whose  office  it  is  to  decide 
upon  questions  of  private  right,  and  to  protect  men 
in  the  exclusive  enjoyment  of  their  property  ?  It 
would  be  equally  absurd  to  intrust  a  military  com- 
mand to  a  Quaker,  who  believes  it  to  be  contrary  to 
the  gospel  to  take  up  arms.  This  is  possible;  there- 
fore it  cannot  be  laid  down  as  a  universal  truth,  that 
religion  is  not,  in  its  nature,  a  cause  which  will  justify 
exclusion  from  public  employments.  When  we  exa- 
mine, however,  the  sects  of  Christianity  which  actu- 
ally prevail  in  the  world,  we  must  confess  that,  with 
the  single  exception  of  refusing  to  bear  arms,  we  find 
no  tenet  in  any  of  them  which  incapacitates  men  for 
the  service  of  the  state.  It  has  indeed  been  asserted, 
that  discordancy  of  religions,  even  supposing  each 
religion  to  be  free  from  any  errors  that  affect  the 
safety  or  the  conduct  of  government,  is  enough  to 
render  men  unfit  to  act  together  in  public  stations. 
But  upon  what  argument,  or  upon  what  experience, 
is  this  assertion  founded  ?  I  perceive  no  reason  why 
men  of  different  religious  persuasions  may  not  sit 
upon  the  same  bench,  deliberate  in  the  same  council, 
or  fight  in  the  same  ranks,  as  well  as  men  of  various 

VOL,.  II.  17 


194  RELIGIOUS   ESTABLISHMENTS, 

or  opposite  opinions  upon  any  controverted  topic  of 
natural  philosophy,  history,  or  ethics. 

There  are  two  cases  in  which  test-laws  are  wont  to 
be  applied,  and  in  which,  if  in  any,  they  may  be 
defended.  One  is,  where  two  or  more  religions  are 
contending  for  establishment,  and  where  there  ap- 
pears no  way  of  putting  an  end  to  the  contest,  but  by 
giving  to  one  religion  such  a  decided  superiority  in 
the  legislature  and  government  of  the  country,  as  to 
secure  it  against  danger  from  any  other.  I  own  that 
I  should  assent  to  this  precaution  with  many  scruples. 
If  the  dissenters  from  the  establishment  become  a 
majority  of  the  people,  the  establishment  itself  ought 
to  be  altered  or  qualified.  If  there  exist  amongst 
the  different  sects  of  the  country  such  a  parity  of 
numbers,  interest,  and  power,  as  to  render  the  prefer- 
ence of  one  sect  to  the  rest,  and  the  choice  of  that 
sect,  a  matter  of  hazardous  success,  and  of  doubtful 
election,  some  plan  similar  to  that  which  is  meditated 
in  North  America,  and  which  we  have  described  in 
a  preceding  part  of  the  present  chapter,  though  en- 
cumbered with  great  difh'culties,  may  perhaps  suit 
better  with  this  divided  state  of  public  opinion,  than 
any  constitution  of  a  national  church  whatever.  In 
all  other  situations,  the  establishment  will  be  strong 
enough  to  maintain  itself.  However,  if  a  test  be  ap- 
plicable with  justice  upon  this  principle  at  all,  it 
ought  to  be  applied  in  regal  governments  to  the  chief 
magistrate  himself,  whose  power  might  otherwise 
overthrow  or  change  the  established  religion  of  the 
country,  in  opposition  to  the  will  and  sentiments  of 
the  people. 

The  second  case  of  exclusion,  and  in  which,  I  think, 
the  measure  is  more  easily  vindicated,  is  that  of  a 
country  in  which  some  disaffection  to  the  subsisting 
government  happens  to  be  connected  with  certain 
religious  distinctions.  The  state  undoubtedly  has  a 
right  to  refuse  its  power  and  its  confidence  to  those 
who  seek  its  destruction. — Wherefore,  if  the  gene- 
rality of  any  religious  sect  entertain  dispositions  hos- 
tile to  the  constitution ,  and  if  government  have  no 
other  way  of  knowing  its  enemies  than  by  the  religion 


AND    TOLERATION  195 

which  they  profess,  the  professors  of  that  religion 
may  justly  be  excluded  from  offices  of  trust  and  au- 
thority. But  even  here  it  should  be  observed,  that 
it  is  not  against  the  religion  that  government  shuts 
its  doors,  but  against  those  political  principles,  which, 
however  independent  they  may  be  of  any  article  of 
religious  faith,  the  members  of  that  communion  are 
found  in  fact  to  hold.  Nor  would  the  legislator  make 
religious  tenets  the  test  of  men's  inclinations  towards 
the  state,  if  he  could  discover  any  other  that  was 
equally  certain  and  notorious.  Thus,  if  the  members 
of  the  Romish  church,  for  the  most  part,  adhere  to 
the  interests,  or  maintain  the  right,  of  a  foreign  pre- 
tender to  the  crown  of  these  kingdoms;  and  if  there 
be  no  way  of  distinguishing  those  who  do  from  those 
who  do  not  retain  such  dangerous  prejudices;  govern- 
ment is  well  warranted  in  fencing  out  the  whole  sect 
from  situations  of  trust  and  power.  But  even  in  this 
example,  it  is  not  to  popery  that  the  laws  object,  but 
to  popery  as  the  mark  of  jacobitism;  an  equivocal 
indeed  and  fallacious  mark,  but  the  best,  and  perhaps 
the  only  one  that  can  be  devised.  But  then  it  should 
be  remembered,  that  as  the  connexion  between  popery 
and  jacobitism,  which  is  the  sole  cause  of  suspicion, 
and  the  sole  justification  of  those  severe  and  jealous 
laws  which  have  been  enacted  against  the  professors 
of  that  religion,  was  accidental  in  its  origin,  so  pro- 
bably it  will  be  temporary  in  its  duration ;  and  that 
these  restrictions  ought  not  to  continue  one  day 
longer  than  some  visible  danger  renders  them  neces- 
sary to  the  preservation  of  public  tranquillity. 

After  all,  it  may  be  asked,  Why  should  not  the 
legislator  direct  his  test  against  the  political  principles 
themselves  which  he  wishes  to  exclude,  rather  than 
encounter  them  through  the  medium  of  religious  tenets, 
the  only  crime  and  the  only  danger  of  which  consists 
in  their  presumed  alliance  with  the  former  ?  Why, 
for  example,  should  a  man  be  required  to  renounce 
transubstantiation,  before  he  be  admitted  to  an  office 
in  the  state,  when  it  might  seem  to  be  sufficient  that 
he  adjure  the  pretender  ?  There  are  but  two  answers 
that  can  be  given  to  the  objection  which  this  question 


196  RELIGIOUS    ESTABLISHMENTS, 

contains:  first,  that  it  is  not  opinions  which  the  laws 
fear  so  much  as  inclinations;  and  that  political  incli- 
nations are  not  so  easily  detected  by  the  affirmation 
or  denial  of  any  abstract  proposition  in  politics,  as  by 
the  discovery  of  the  religious  creed  with  which  they 
are  wont  to  be  united; — secondly,  that  when  men 
renounce  their  religion,  they  commonly  quit  all  con- 
nexion with  the  members  of  the  church  which  they 
have  left;  that  church  no  longer  expecting  assistance 
or  friendship  from  them;  whereas  particular  persons 
might  insinuate  themselves  into  offices  of  trust  and 
authority,  by  subscribing  political  assertions,  and  yet 
retain  their  predilection  for  the  interests  of  the  reli- 
gious sect  to  which  they  continued  to  belong.  By 
which  means,  government  would  sometimes  find, 
though  it  could  not  accuse  the  individual  whom  it 
had  received  into  its  service  of  disaffection  to  the  civil 
establishment,  yet  that,  through  him,  it  had  commu- 
nicated the  aid  and  influence  of  a  powerful  station  to 
a  party  who  were  hostile  to  the  constitution.  These 
answers,  however,  we  propose  rather  than  defend. 
The  measure  certainly  cannot  be  defended  at  all,  ex- 
cept where  the  suspected  union  between  certain  obnox- 
ous  principles  in  politics,  and  certain  tenets  in  religion, 
is  nearly  universal;  in  which  case,  it  makes  little  dif- 
ference to  the  subscriber,  whether  the  test  be  religious 
or  political;  and  the  state  is  somewhat  better  secured 
by  the  one  than  the  other. 

The  result  of  our  examination  of  those  general  ten- 
dencies, by  which  every  interference  of  civil  govern- 
ment in  matters  of  religion  ought  to  be  tried,  is  this: 
"That  a  comprehensive  national  religion,  guarded  by 
a  few  articles  of  peace  and  conformity,  together  with 
a  legal  provision  for  the  clergy  of  that  religion;  and 
with  a  complete  toleration  of  all  dissenters  from  the 
established  church,  without  any  other  limitation  or 
exception  than  what  arises  from  the  conjunction  of 
dangerous  political  dispositions  with  certain  religious 
tenets;  appears  to  be,  not  only  the  most  just  and 
liberal,  but  the  wisest  and  safest  system  which  a  state 
can  adopt;  inasmuch  as  it  unites  the  several  perfec- 
tions which  a  religious  constitution  ought  to  aim  at — 


AND  TOLERATION.  197 

liberty  of  conscience,  with  means  of  instruction;  the 
progress  of  truth, with  the  peace  of  society;  the  right 
of  private  judgment,  with  the  care  of  the  public 
safety." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

€F  POPULATION  AND  PROVISION;  AND  OF  AGRI- 
CULTURE AND  COMMERCE,  AS  SUBSERVIENT 
THERETO. 

THE  final  view  of  all  rational  politics  is  to  produce 
the  greatest  quantity  of  happiness  in  a  given  tract  of 
country.  The  riches,  strength,  and  glory  of  nations — 
the  topics  which  history  celebrates,  and  which  alone 
almost  engage  the  praises  and  possess  the  admiration 
of  mankind — have  no  value  farther  than  as  they  con- 
tribute tcthis  end.  When  they  interfere  with  it,  they 
are  evils,  and  not  the  less  real  for  the  splendour  that 
surrounds  them. 

Secondly,  Although  we  speak  of  communities  as  of 
sentient  beings;  although  we  ascribe  to  them  hap- 
piness and  misery,  desires,  interests,  and  passions; 
nothing  really  exists  or  feels  but  individuals.  The 
happiness  of  a  people  is  made  up  of  the  happiness  of 
single  persons;  and  the  quantity  of  happiness  can 
only  be  augmented  by  increasing  the  number  of  the 
percipients,  or  the  pleasure  of  their  perceptions. 

Thirdly,  Notwithstanding  that  diversity  of  condi- 
tion, especially  different  degrees  of  plenty,  freedom, 
and  security,  greatly  vary  the  quantity  of  happiness 
enjoyed  by  the  same  number  of  individuals;  and  not- 
withstanding that  extreme  cases  may  be  found,  of  hu- 
man beings  so  galled  by  the  rigours  of  slavery  that  the 
increase  of  numbers  is  only  the  amplification  of  mi- 
sery; yet  within  certain  limits,  and  within  those  limits 
to  which  civil  life  is  diversified  under  the  temperate 
governments  that  obtain  in  Europe,  it  may  be  affirmed, 
I  think,  with  certainty,  that  the  quantity  of  happiness 

VOL.   II.  17  * 


198  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

produced  in  any  given  district  so  far  depends  upon 
the  number  of  inhabitants,  that,  in  comparing  adjoin- 
ing periods  in  the  same  country,  the  collective  hap- 
piness will  be  nearly  in  the  exact  proportion  of  (he 
numbers;  that  is,  twice  the  number  of  inhabitants 
will  produce  double  the  quantity  of  happiness:  in 
distant  periods,  and  different  countries,  under  great 
changes  or  great  dissimilitude  of  civil  condition,  al- 
though the  proportion  of  enjoyment  may  fall  much 
short  of  that  of  the  numbers,  yet  still  any  considerable 
excess  of  numbers  will  usually  carry  with  it  a  pre- 
ponderation  of  happiness;  that,  at  least,  it  may  and 
ought  to  be  assumed  in  all  political  deliberations,  that 
a  larger  portion  of  happiness  is  enjoyed  amongst  ten 
persons,  possessing  the  means  of  healthy  subsistence, 
than  can  be  produced  by  Jive  persons,  under  every  ad- 
vantage of  power,  affluence,  and  luxury. 

From  these  principles  it  follows,  that  the  quantity 
of  happiness  in  a  given  district,  although  it  is  possible 
it  may  be  increased,  the  number  of  inhabitants  remain- 
ing the  same,  is  chiefly  and  most  naturally  affected 
by  alteration  of  the  numbers:  that,  consequently,  the 
decay  of  population  is  the  greatest  evil  that  a  state 
can  suffer;  and  the  improvement  of  it  the  object  which 
ought,  in  all  countries,  to  be  aimed  at,  in  preference 
to  every  other  political  purpose  whatsoever. 

The  importance  of  population,  and  the  superiority 
of  it  to  every  other  national  advantage,  are  points 
necessary  to  be  inculcated,  and  to  be  understood; 
inasmuch  as  false  estimates,  or  fantastic  notions  of 
national  grandeur,  are  perpetually  drawing  the  atten- 
tion of  statesmen  and  legislators  from  the  care  of  this. 
which  is,  at  all  times,  the  true  and  absolute  interest  of 
a  country:  for  which  reason,  we  have  stated  these 
points  with  unusual  formality.  We  will  confess,  how- 
ever,  that  a  competition  can  seldom  arise  between  the 
advancement  of  population  and  any  measure  of  sober 
utility;  because,  in  the  ordinary  progress  of  human 
affairs,  whatever,  in  any  way,  contributes  to  make  a 
people  happier,  tends  to  render  them  more  numerous. 

In  the  fecundity  of  the  human,  as  of  every  other  spe- 
cies of  animals,  nature  has  provided  for  an  indefinite 


AGRICULTURE    AND    COMMERCE  199 

multiplication.  Mankind  have  increased  to  their  pre- 
sent number  from  a  single  pair:  the  offspring  of  early 
marriages,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  procreation,  do 
more  than  replace  the  parents:  in  countries,  and  under 
circumstances,  very  favourable  to  subsistence,  the  po- 
pulation has  been  doubled  in  the  space  of  twenty 
years;  the  havoc  occasioned  by  wars,  earthquakes, 
famine,  or  pestilence,  is  usually  repaired  in  a  short 
time.  These  indications  sufficiently  demonstrate  the 
tendency  of  nature  in  the  human  species,  to  a  con- 
tinual increase  of  its  numbers.  It  becomes  therefore 
a  question  that  may  reasonably  be  propounded,  what 
are  the  causes  which  confine  or  check  the  natural  pro- 
gress of  this  multiplication  ?  And  the  answer  which 
first  presents  itself  to  the  thoughts  of  the  inquirer  is, 
that  the  population  of  a  country  must  stop  when  the 
country  can  maintain  no  more,  that  is,  when  the  in- 
habitants are  already  so  numerous  as  to  exhaust  all  the 
provision  which  the  soil  can  be  made  to  produce. 
This,  however,  though  an  insuperable  bar,  will  seldom 
be  found  to  be  that  which  actually  checks  the  progress 
of  population  in  any  country  of  the  world;  because 
the  number  of  the  people  have  seldom,  in  any  country, 
arrived  at  this  limit,  or  even  approached  to  it.  The 
fertility  of  the  ground,  in  temperate  regions,  is  capable 
of  being  improved  by  cultivation  to  an  extent  which 
is  unknown;  much,  however,  beyond  the  state  of  im- 
provement in  any  country  of  Europe.  In  our  own, 
which  holds  almost  the  first  place  in  the  knowledge 
and  encouragement  of  agriculture,  let  it  only  be  sup- 
posed that  every  field  in  England,  of  the  same  original 
quality  with  those  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  me- 
tropolis, and  consequently  capable  of  the  same  fertili- 
ty, were  by  a  like  management  made  to  yield  an  equal 
produce;  and  it  may  be  asserted,  I  believe  with  truth, 
that  the  quantity  of  human  provision  raised  in  the 
island  would  be  increased  five-fold.  The  two  prin- 
ciples, therefore,  upon  which  population  seems  pri- 
marily to  depend,  the  fecundity  of  the  species,  and 
the  capacity  of  the  soil,  would  in  most,  perhaps  in  all 
countries,  enable  it  to  proceed  much  farther  than  it 
has  yet  advanced.  The  number  of  marriageable 


200  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

women,  who,  in  each  country,  remain  unmarried,  af- 
ford a  computation  how  much  the  agency  of  nature  in 
the  diffusion  of  human  life  is  cramped  and  contracted; 
and  the  quantity  of  waste,  neglected,  or  mismanaged 
surface, — together  with  a  comparison,  like  the  pre- 
ceding, of  the  crops  raised  from  the  soil  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  populous  cities,  and  under  a  perfect  state 
of  cultivation,  with  those  which  lands  of  equal  or  su- 
perior quality  yield  in  different  situations, — will  show 
in  what  proportion  the  indigenous  productions  of  the 
earth  are  capable  of  being  farther  augmented. 

The  fundamental  proposition  upon  the  subject  of 
population,  which  must  guide  every  endeavour  to  im- 
prove it,  and  from  which  every  conclusion  concerning 
it  may  be  deduced,  is  this:  "  Wherever  the  commerce 
between  the  sexes  is  regulated  by  marriage,  and  a 
provision  for  that  mode  of  subsistence,  to  which  each 
class  of  the  community  is  accustomed,  can  be  procured 
with  ease  and  certainty,  there  the  number  of  the 
people  will  increase;  and  the  rapidity,  as  well  as  the 
extent,  of  the  increase,  will  be  proportioned  to  the 
degree  in  which  these  causes  exist. 

This  proposition  we  will  draw  out  into  the  several 
principles  which  it  contains. 

1.  First,  the  proposition  asserts  the  "  necessity  of 
confining  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes  to  the  marriage 
union."  It  is  only  in  the  marriage  union  that  this 
intercourse  is  sufficiently  prolific.  Beside  which, 
family  establishments  alone  are  fitted  to  perpetuate  a 
succession  of  generations.  The  offspring  of  a  vague 
and  promiscuous  concubinage  are  not  only  few,  and 
liable  to  perish  by  neglect,  but  are  seldom  prepared 
for  or  introduced  into  situations  suited  to  the  ra.sing 
of  families  of  their  own.  Hence  the  advantages  of 
marriages.  Now  nature,  in  the  constitution  of  the 
sexes,  has  provided  a  stimulus  which  will  infallibly  se- 
cure the  frequency  of  marriages,  with  all  their  bcne5  • 
cial  effects  upon  the  state  of  population,  provided  the 
male  part  of  the  species  be  prohibited  from  irregular 
gratifications.  This  impulse,  which  is  sufficient  to  sur- 
mount almost  every  impediment  to  marriage,  will 
operate  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty,  expense,  dan- 


AGRICULTURE,  AND  COMMERCE.  201 

ger,  or  infamy,  the  sense  of  guilt,  or  the  fear  of  punish- 
ment, which  attends  licentious  indulgences.  Where- 
fore, in  countries  in  which  subsistence  is  become 
scarce,  it  behoves  the  state  to  watch  over  the  public 
morals  with  increased  solicitude;  for  nothing  but  the 
instinct  of  nature,  under  the  restraint  of  chastity,  will 
induce  men  to  undertake  the  labour,  or  consent  to  the 
sacrifice  of  personal  liberty  and  indulgence,  which  the 
support  of  a  family  in  such  circumstances  requires. 

2.  The  second  requisite  which  our  proposition  states 
as  necessary  to  the  success  of  population,  is,  "  the 
ease  and  certainty  with  which  a  provision  can  be  pro- 
cured for  that  mode  of  subsistence  to  which  each  class 
of  the  community  is  accustomed."  It  is  not  enough 
that  men's  natural  wants  be  supplied;  that  a  provi- 
sion adequate  to  the  real  exigencies  of  human  life  be 
attainable:  habitual  superfluities  become  actual  wants; 
opinion  and  fashion  convert  articles  of  ornament  and 
luxury  into  necessaries  of  life.  And  it  must  not  be 
expected  from  men  in  general,  at  least  in  the  present 
relaxed  state  of  morals  and  discipline,  that  they  will 
enter  into  marriages  which  degrade  their  condition, 
reduce  their  mode  of  living,  deprive  them  of  the  ac- 
commodations to  which  they  have  been  accustomed, 
or  even  of  those  ornaments  or  appendages  of  rank 
and  station  which  they  have  been  taught  to  regard  as 
belonging  to  their  birth,  or  class*  or  profession,  or 
place  in  society.  The  same  consideration,  namely,  a 
view  to  their  accustomed  mode  of  life,  which  is  so  ap- 
parent in  the  superior  orders  of  the  people,  has  no  less 
influence  upon  those  ranks  which  compose  the  mass 
of  the  community.  The  kind  and  quality  of  food  and 
liquor,  the  species  of  habitation,  furniture,  and  cloth- 
ing, to  which  the  common  people  of  each  country  are 
habituated,  must  be  attainable  with  ease  and  certainty, 
before  marriages  will  be  sufficiently  early  and  general 
to  carry  the  progress  of  population  to  its  just  extent. 
It  is  in  vain  to  allege,  that  a  more  simple  diet,  ruder 
habitations,  or  coarser  apparel,  would  be  sufficient  for 
the  purposes  of  life  and  health,  or  even  of  physical 
ease  and  pleasure.  Men  will  not  marry  with  this  en- 
couragement. For  instance,  when  the  common  peo- 


202  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

pie  of  a  country  are  accustomed  to  eat  a  large  pro- 
portion of  animal  food,  to  drink  wine,  spirits,  or  beer, 
to  wear  shoes  and  stockings,  to  dwell  in  stone  houses, 
they  will  not  marry  to  live  in  clay  cottages,  upon 
roots  and  milk,  with  no  other  clothing  than  skins,  or 
what  is  necessary  to  defend  the  trunk  of  the  body 
from  the  effects  of  cold;  although  these  last  may  be 
all  that  the  sustentation  of  life  and  health  requires,  or 
that  even  contribute  much  to  animal  comfort  and  en- 
joyment. 

The  ease,  then,  and  certainty  with  which  the  means 
can  be  procured,  not  barely  of  subsistence,  but  of  that 
mode  of  subsisting  which  custom  hath  in  each  coun- 
try established,  from  the  point  upon  which  the  state 
and  progress  of  population  chiefly  depend.  Now 
there  are  three  causes  which  evidently  regulate  this 
point:  the  mode  itself  of  subsisting  which  prevails  in 
the  country;  the  quantity  of  provision,  suited  to  that 
mode  of  subsistence,  which  is  .either  raised  in  the 
country  or  imported  into  it;  and,  lastly,  the  distribu- 
tion of  that  provision. 

These  three  causes  merit  distinct  consideration. 

1.  The  mode  of  living  which  actually  obtains  in  a 
country.  In  China,  where  the  inhabitants  frequent 
the  seashore,  or  the  banks  of  large  rivers,  and  subsist 
in  a  great  measure  upon  fish,  the  population  is  de- 
scribed to  be  excessive.  This  peculiarity  arises,  not 
probably  from  any  civil  advantages,  any  care  or 
policy,  any  particular  constitution  or  superior  wisdom 
of  government;  but  simply  from  hence,  that  the  spe- 
cies of  food  to  which  custom  hath  reconciled  the  de- 
sires and  inclinations  of  the  inhabitants,  is  that  which, 
of  all  others,  is  procured  in  the  greatest  abundance, 
with  the  most  ease,  and  stands  in  need  of  the  least 
preparation.  The  natives  of  Indostan  being  confined, 
by  the  laws  of  their  religion,  to  the  use  of  vegetable 
food,  and  requiring  little  except  rice,  which  the  coun- 
try produces  in  plentiful  crops;  and  food,  in  warm 
climates,  composing  the  only  want  of  life;  these  coun- 
tries are  populous,  under  all  the  injuries  of  a  despotic, 
and  the  the  agitations  of  an  unsettled  government.  If 
any  revalution,  or  what  would  be  cal'ed  perhaps  re- 


AGRICULTURE,  AND  COMMERCE.  203 

fincment  of  manners,  should  generate  in  these  people 
a  taste  for  the  flesh  of  animals,  similar  to  what  pre- 
vails amongst  the  Arabian  hordes;  should  introduce 
flocks  and  herds  into  grounds  which  are  now  covered 
with  corn;  should  teach  them  to  account  a  certain  por- 
tion of  this  species  of  food  amongst  the  necessaries  of 
life;  the  population,  from  this  single  change,  would 
suffer  in  a  few  years  a  great  diminution:  and  this  dimi- 
nution would  follow,  in  spite  of  every  effort  of  the 
laws,  or  even  of  any  improvement  that  might  take 
place  in  their  civil  condition.  In  Ireland,  the  simpli- 
city of  living  alone  maintains  a  considerable  degree  of 
population,  under  great  defects  of  police,  industry, 
and  commerce. 

Under  this  head,  and  from  a  view  of  these  conside- 
rations, may  be  understood  the  true  evil  and  proper 
danger  of  luxury. 

Luxury,  as  it  supplies  employment  and  promotes 
industry,  assists  population.  But  then  there  is  another 
consequence  attending  it,  which  counteracts  and 
often  overbalances  these  advantages.  When,  by  in- 
troducing more  superfluities  into  general  reception, 
luxury  has  rendered  the  usual  accommodations  of  life 
more  expensive,  artificial,  and  elaborate,  the  difficulty 
of  maintaining  a  family,  conformably  with  the  esta- 
blished mode  of  living,  becomes  greater,  and  what 
each  man  has  to  spare  from  his  personal  consumption 
proportionably  less:  the  effect  of  which  is,  that  mar- 
riages grow  less  frequent,  agreeably  to  the  maxim 
above  laid  down,  and  which  must  be  remembered  as 
the  foundation  of  all  our  reasoning  upon  the  subject, 
that  men  will  not  marry  to  sink  their  place  or  condi- 
tion in  society,  or  to  forego  those  indulgences  which 
their  own  habits,  or  what  they  observe  amongst  their 
equals,  have  rendered  necessary  to  their  satisfaction 
This  principle  is  applicable  to  every  article  of  diet 
and  dress,  to  houses,  furniture,  attendance;  and  this 
effect  will  be  felt  in  every  class  of  the  community. 
For  instance,  the  custom  of  wearing  broadcloth  and 
fine  linen  repays  the  shepherd  and  flax  grower,  feeds 
the  manufacturer,  enriches  the  merchant,  gives  not 
only  support  but  existence  to  multitudes  of  families; 


204  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

hitherto,  therefore,  the  effects  are  beneficial;  and 
were  these  the  only  effects,  such  elegancies,  or,  if  you 
please  to  call  them  so,  such  luxuries,  could  not  be 
too  universal.  But  here  follows  the  mischief:  when 
once  fashion  hath  annexed  the  use  of  these  articles  of 
dress  to  any  certain  class,  the  middling  ranks,  for  ex- 
ample, of  the  community,  each  individual  of  that  rank 
finds  them  to  be  necessaries  of  life;  that  is,  finds 
himself  obliged  to  comply  with  the  example  of  his 
equals,  and  to  maintain  that  appearance  which  the 
custom  of  society  requires.  This  obligation  creates 
such  a  demand  upon  his  income,  and  which  adds  so 
much  to  the  cost  and  burden  of  a  family,  as  to  put  it 
out  of  his  power  to  marry,  with  the  prospect  of  con- 
tinuing his  habits,  or  of  maintaining  his  place  and 
situation  in  the  world.  We  see,  in  this  description, 
the  cause  which  induces  men  to  waste  their  lives  in  a 
barren  celibacy;  and  this  cause,  which  impairs  the 
very  source  of  population,  is  justly  placed  to  the  ac- 
count of  luxury. 

It  appears,  then,  that  luxury,  considered  with  a 
view  to  population,  acts  by  two  opposite  effects;  and 
it  seems  probable  that  there  exists  a  point  in  the  scale 
to  which  luxury  may  ascend,  or  to  which  the  wants 
of  mankind  may  be  multiplied  with  advantage  to  the 
community,  and  beyond  which  the  prejudicial  conse- 
quences begin  to  preponderate.  The  determination 
of  this  point,  though  it  assume  the  form  of  an  arith- 
metical problem,  depends  upon  circumstances  too 
numerous,  intricate,  and  undefined,  to  admit  of  a  pre- 
cise solution.  However,  from  what  has  been  ob- 
served concerning  the  tendency  of  luxury  to  diminish 
marriages,  in  which  tendency  the  evil  of  it  resides,  the 
following  general  conclusions  may  be  established: — 
1st,  That,  of  different  kinds  of  luxury,  those  are 
the  most  innocent  which  afford  employment  to  the 
greatest  number  of  artists  and  manufacturers;  or 
those,  in  other  words,  in  which  the  price  of  the  work 
bears  the  greatest  proportion  to  that  of  the  raw  ma- 
terial. Thus,  luxury  in  dress  or  furniture  is  univer- 
sally preferable  to  luxury  in  eating,  because  the  arti- 
cles which  constitute  the  one  are  more  the  production 


AGRICULTURE,  AND  COMMERCE.  205 

of  human  art  and  industry  than  those  which  supply 
the  other. 

2dly,  That  it  is  the  diffusion,  rather  than  the  degree 
of  luxury,  which  is  to  be  dreaded  as  a  national  evil. 
The  mischief  of  luxury  consists,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
the  obstruction  which  it  forms  to  marriage.  Now  it 
is  only  a  small  part  of  the  people  that  the  higher 
ranks  in  any  country  compose;  for  which  reason, 
the  facility  or  the  difficulty  of  supporting  the  expense 
of  their  station,  and  the  consequent  increase  or  dimi- 
nution of  marriages  among  them,  will  influence  the 
state  of  population  but  little.  So  long  as  the  preva- 
lency  of  luxury  is  confined  to  a  few  of  elevated  rank, 
much  of  the  benefit  is  felt,  and  little  of  the  inconve- 
niency.  But  when  the  imitation  of  the  same  man- 
ners descends,  as  it  always  will  do,  into  the  mass  of 
the  people;  when  it  advances  the  requisites  of  living 
beyond  what  it  adds  to  men's  abilities  to  purchase 
them;  then  it  is  that  luxury  checks  the  formation  of 
families,  in  a  degree  that  ought  to  alarm  the  public 
fears. 

3dly,  That  the  condition  most  favourable  to  popu- 
lation is  that  of  a  laborious,  frugal  people,  minister- 
ing to  the  demands  of  an  opulent,  luxurious  nation; 
because  this  situation,  whilst  it  leaves  them  every  ad- 
vantage of  luxury,  exempts  them  from  the  evils  which 
naturally  accompany  its  admission  into  any  country. 

2.  Next  to  the  mode  of  living,  we  are  to  consider 
**  the  quantity  of  provision  suited  to  that  mode,  which 
is  either  raised  in  the  country,  or  imported  into  it;" 
for  this  is  the  order  in  which  we  assigned  the  causes 
of  population,  and  undertook  to  treat  of  them.  Now, 
if  we  measure  the  quantity  of  provision  by  the  num- 
ber of  human  bodies  it  will  support  in  due  health  and 
vigour,  this  quantity,  the  extent  and  quality  of  the 
soil  from  which  it  is  raised  being  given,  will  depend 
greatly  upon  the  kind.  For  instance,  a  piece  of 
ground  capable  of  supplying  animal  food  sufficient 
for  the  subsistence  of  ten  persons,  would  sustain  at 
least  the  double  of  that  number  with  grain,  roots, 
and  milk.  The  first  resource  of  savage  life  is  in  the 
flesh  of  wild  animals:  hence  the  numbers  amongst  sav- 

VOL.  II.  18 


206  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

age  nations,  compared  with  the  tract  of  country 
which  they  occupy,  arc  universally  small;  because  thia 
species  of  provision  is,  of  all  others,  supplied  in  the 
slenderest  proportion.  The  next  step  was  the  inven- 
tion of  pasturage,  or  the  rearing  of  flocks  and  herds 
of  tame  animals:  this  alteration  added  to  the  stock 
of  provision  much.  But  the  last  and  principal  im- 
provement was  to  follow;  namely,  tillage,  or  the  arti- 
ficial production  of  corn,  esculent  plants  and  roots. 
This  discovery,  whilst  it  changed  the  quality  of 
human  food,  augmented  the  quantify  in  a  vast  pro- 
portion. So  far  as  the  state  of  population  is  governed 
and  limited  by  the  quantity  of  provision,  perhaps 
there  is  no  single  cause  that  affects  it  so  powerfully 
as  the  kind  and  quality  of  food  which  chance  or 
usage  hath  introduced  into  a  country.  In  England, 
notwithstanding  the  produce  of  the  soil  has  been,  of 
late,  considerably  increased  by  the  enclosure  of 
wastes,  and  the  adoption,  in  many  places,  of  a  more 
successful  husbandry,  yet  we  do  not  observe  a  cor- 
responding addition  to  the  number  of  inhabitants; 
the  reason  of  which  appears  to  me  to  be,  the  more 
general  consumption  of  animal  food  amongst  us. 
Many  ranks  of  people  whose  ordinary  diet  was,  in 
the  last  century,  prepared  almost  entirely  from  milk, 
roots,  and  vegetables,  now  require  every  day  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  flesh  of  animals.  Hence  a 
great  part  of  the  richest  lands  of  the  country  is  con- 
verted to  pasturage.  Much  also  of  the  bread-corn 
which  went  directly  to  the  nourishment  of  human 
bodies,  now  only  contributes  to  it  by  fattening  the 
flesh  of  sheep  and  oxen.  The  mass  and  volume  of 
provisions  are  hereby  diminished;  and  what  is  gained 
in  the  melioration  of  the  soil,  is  lost  in  the  quality  of 
the  produce.  This  consideration  teaches  us,  that  til- 
lage ,  as  an  object  of  national  care  and  encouragement, 
is  universally  preferable  to  pasturage,  because  the 
kind  of  provision  which  it  yields  goes  much  further  in 
the  sustentation  of  human  life.  Tillage  is  also  re- 
commended by  this  additional  advantage,  that  it  af- 
fords employment  to  a  much  more  numerous  peasantry. 
Indeed,  oasturage  seems  to  be  the  art  of  a  nation, 


AGRICULTURE    AND    COMMERCE.  207 

either  imperfectly  civilized,  as  are  many  of  the  tribes 
which  cultivate  it  in  the  internal  parts  of  Asia;  or  of 
a  nation  like  Spain,  declining  from  its  summit  by 
luxury  and  inactivity. 

The  kind  and  quality  of  provision,  together  with 
the  extent  and  capacity  of  the  soil  from  which  it  is 
raised,  being  the  same,  the  quantity  procured  will 
principally  depend  upon  two  circumstances, — the 
ability  of  the  occupier,  and  the  encouragement  which 
he  receives.  The  greatest  misfortune  of  a  country  is 
an  indigent  tenantry.  Whatever  be  the  native  advan- 
tages of  the  soil,  or  even  the  skill  and  industry  of  the 
occupier,  the  want  of  a  sufficient  capital  confines  every 
plan,  as  well  as  cripples  and  weakens  every  operation 
of  husbandry.  This  evil  is  felt,  where  agriculture  is 
accounted  a  servile  or  mean  employment  ;  where 
farms  are  extremely  subdivided,  and  badly  furnished 
with  habitations;  where  leases  are  unknown,  or  are 
of  short  or  precarious  duration.  With  respect  to  the 
encouragement  of  husbandry;  in  this,  as  in  every 
other  employment,  the  true  reward  of  industry  is  in 
the  price  and  sale  of  the  produce.  The  exclusive 
right  to  the  produce  is  the  only  incitement  which 
acts  constantly  and  universally;  the  only  spring  which 
keeps  human  labour  in  motion.  All  therefore  that 
the  laws  can  do  is  to  secure  this  right  to  the  occu- 
pier of  the  ground;  that  is,  to  constitute  such  a  sys- 
tem of  tenure,  that  the  full  and  entire  advantage  of 
every  improvement  go  to  the  benefit  of  the  improver; 
that  every  man  work  for  himself,  and  not  for  another; 
and  that  no  one  share  in  the  profit  who  does  not  assist 
in  the  production.  By  the  occupier  I  here  mean,  not 
so  much  the  person  who  performs  the  work,  as  him 
who  procures  the  labour  and  directs  the  management, 
and  I  consider  the  whole  profit  as  received  by  the 
occupier,  when  the  occupier  is  benefitted  by  the  whole 
value  of  what  is  produced,  which  is  the  case  with  the 
tenant  who  pays  a  fixed  rent  for  the  use  of  land,  no 
less  than  with  the  proprietor  who  holds  it  as  his  own. 
The  one  has  the  same  interest  in  the  produce,  and  in 
the  advantage  of  every  improvement,  as  the  other. 
Likewise  the  proprietor,  though  he  grant  out  his 


208  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

estate  to  farm,  may  be  considered  as  the  occupier, in- 
asmuch as  he  regulates  the  occupation  by  the  choice, 
superintendency,  and  encouragement  of  his  tenants, 
by  the  disposition  of  his  lands,  by  erecting  buildings, 
providing  accommodations,  by  prescribing  conditions, 
or  supplying  implements  and  materials  of  improve- 
ment; and  is  entitled,  by  the  rule  of  public  expedi- 
ency above  mentioned,  to  receive,  in  the  advance  of 
his  rent,  a  share  of  the  benefit  which  arises  from  the 
increased  produce  of  his  estate.  The  violation  of  this 
fundamental  maxim  of  agrarian  policy  constitutes  the 
chief  objection  to  the  holding  of  lands  by  the  state, 
by  the  king,  by  corporate  bodies,  by  private  persons 
in  right  of  their  offices  or  benefices.  The  inconven- 
iency  to  the  public  arises  not  so  much  from  the  un- 
alienable  quality  of  lands  thus  holden  in  perpetuity, 
as  from  hence, — that  proprietors  of  this  description 
seldom  contribute  much  either  of  attention  or  expense 
to  the  cultivation  of  their  estates,  yet  claim,  by  the 
rent,  a  share  in  the  profit  of  every  improvement  that 
is  made  upon  them.  This  complaint  can  only  be  ob- 
viated by  "  long  leases  at  a  fixed  rent,"  which  convey 
a  large  portion  of  the  interest  to  those  who  actually 
conduct  the  cultivation.  The  same  objection  is  ap- 
plicable to  the  holding  of  lands  by  foreign  proprietors, 
and  in  some  degree  to  estates  of  too  great  extent  be- 
ing placed  in  the  same  hands. 

3.  Beside  the  production  of  provision,  there  re- 
mains to  be  considered  the  DISTRIBUTION, — It  is  in 
vain  that  provisions  abound  in  the  country,  unless  I 
be  able  to  obtain  a  share  of  them.  This  reflection 
belongs  to  every  individual.  The  plenty  of  provision 
produced,  the  quantity  of  the  public  stock  affords 
subsistence  to  individuals,  and  encouragement  to  the 
formation  of  families,  only  in  proportion  as  it  is  dis- 
tributed, that  is,  in  proportion  as  these  individuals  are 
allowed  to  draw  from  it  a  supply  of  their  own  wants. 
The  distribution,  therefore,  becomes  of  equal  conse- 
quence to  population  with  the  production*  Now 
there  is  but  one  principle  of  distribution  that  can  ever 
become  universal,  namely,  the  principle  "  of  ex- 
change >"  or,  in  other  words,  that  every  man  have 


AGRICULTURE    AND    COMMERCE.  209 

something  to  give  in  return  for  what  he  wants.  Bounty, 
however  it  may  come  in  aid  of  another  principle, 
however  it  may  occasionally  qualify  the  rigour,  or 
supply  the  imperfection,  of  an  established  rule  of  dis- 
tribution, can  never  itself  become  that  rule  or  princi- 
ple; because  men  will  not  work  to  give  the  produce 
of  their  labour  away.  Moreover,  the  only  equivalents 
that  can  be  offered  in  exchange  for  provision  are  pow- 
er and  labour.  All  property  is  power.  What  we  call 
property  in  land,  is  the  power  to  use  it,  and  to  exclude 
others  from  the  use.  Money  is  the  representative  of 
power,  because  it  is  convertible  into  power:  the  value 
of  it  consists  in  its  faculty  of  procuring  power  over 
things  and  persons.  But  power  which  results  from 
civil  conventions  (and  of  this  kind  is  what  we  call  a 
man's  fortune  or  estate,)  is  necessarily  confined  to  a 
few,  and  is  withal  soon  exhausted;  whereas  the  capa- 
city of  labour  is  every  man's  natural  possession,  and 
composes  a  constant  and  renewing  fund.  The  hire, 
therefore,  or  produce  of  personal  industry,  is  that 
which  the  bulk  of  every  community  must  bring  to 
market,  in  exchange  for  the  means  of  subsistence;  m 
other  words,  employment  must,  in  every  country,  be 
the  medium  of  distribution,  and  the  source  of  supply 
to  individuals.  But  when  we  consider  the  production 
and  distribution  of  provision,  as  distinct  from  and 
independent  of  each  other;  when,  supposing  the 
same  quantity  to  be  produced,  we  inquire  in  what 
way,  or  according  to  what  rule,  it  may  be  distributed; 
we  are  led  to  a  conception  of  the  subject  not  at  all 
agreeable  to  truth  and  reality:  for,  in  truth  and  re- 
ality, though  provision  must  be  produced  before  it  be 
distributed,  yet  the  production  depends,  in  a  great 
measure,  upon  the  distribution.  The  quantity  of 
provision  raised  out  of  the  ground,  so  far  as  the  rais- 
ing of  it  requires  human  art  or  labour,  will  evidently 
be  regulated  by  the  demand:  the  demand,  or,  in 
other  words,  the  price  and  sale  being  that  which  alone 
rewards  the  care,  or  excites  the  diligence,  of  the  hus- 
bandman. But  the  sale  of  provision  depends  upon 
the  number,  not  of  those  who  want,  but  of  those  who 
h?ve  something  to  offer  in  return  for  what  they  want; 
VOL.  n.  18* 


210  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

not  of  those  who  would  consume,  but  of  those  who 
can  buy;  that  is,  upon  the  number  of  those  who  have 
the  fruits  of  some  other  kind  of  industry  to  tender  in 
exchange  for  what  they  stand  in  need  of  from  the  pro- 
duction of  the  soil. 

We  see,  therefore,  the  connexion  between  popula- 
tion and  employment.  Employment  affects  population 
"  directly,"  as  it  affords  the  only  medium  of  distribu- 
tion by  which  individuals  can  obtain  from  the  com- 
mon stock  a  supply  for  the  wants  of  their  families:  it 
affects  population  "indirectly,"  as  it  augments  the 
stock  itself  of  provision,  in  the  only  way  by  which  the 
production  of  it  can  be  effectually  encouraged — by 
furnishing  purchasers.  No  man  can  purchase  with- 
out an  equivalent;  and  that  equivalent,  by  the  gene- 
rality of  the  people,  must  in  every  country  be  derived 
from  employment. 

And  upon  this  basis  is  founded  the  public  benefit 
of  trade,  that  is  to  say,  its  subserviency  to  population, 
in  which  its  only  real  utility  consists.  Of  that  indus- 
try, and  of  those  arts  and  branches  of  trade,  which 
are  employed  in  the  production,  conveyance,  and  pre- 
paration of  any  principal  species  of  human  food,  as 
of  the  business  of  the  husbandman,  the  butcher,  baker, 
brewer,  corn-merchant,  &c.  we  acknowledge  the  ne- 
cessity: likewise,  of  those  manufactures  which  furnish 
us  with  warm  clothing,  convenient  habitations,  do- 
mestic utensils,  as  of  the  weaver,  tailor,  smith,  carpen- 
ter, &c.  we  perceive  (in  climates,  however,  like  ours, 
removed  at  a  distance  from  the  sun)  the  conducive- 
ness  to  population,  by  their  rendering  human  life  more 
healthy,  vigorous,  and  comfortable.  But  not  one 
half  of  the  occupations  which  compose  the  trade  of 
Europe  fall  within  either  of  these  descriptions.  Per- 
haps two  thirds  of  the  manufacturers  in  England  are 
employed  upon  articles  of  confessed  luxurv,  ornament, 
or  splendour;  in  the  superfluous  embellishment  of 
same  articles  which  are  useful  in  their  kind,  or  upon 
others  which  have  no  conceivable  use  or  value  but 
what  is  founded  in  caprice  or  fashion.  What  can  bo 
less  necessary,  or  less  connected  with  the  sustentation 
of  hu<nan  life,  than  the  whole  produce  of  the  silk, 


AGRICULTURE  AND   COMMERCE.  211 

lace,  and  plate  manufactory  ?  yet  what  multitudes 
labour  in  the  different  branches  of  these  arts!  What 
can  be  imagined  more  capricious  than  the  fondness 
for  tobacco  and  snuff?  yet  how  many  various  occupa- 
tions, and  how  many  thousands  in  each,  are  set  at 
work  in  administering  to  this  frivolous  gratification! 
Concerning  trades  of  this  kind  (and  this  kind  com- 
prehends more  than  half  of  the  trades  that  are  ex- 
ercised,) it  may  fairly  be  asked.  "  How,  since  they 
add  nothing  to  the  stock  of  provision,  do  they  tend  to 
increase  the  number  of  the  people?"  We  are  taught 
to  say  of  trade,  "  that  it  maintains  multitudes:"  but 
by  what  means  does  it  maintain  them,  when  it  pro- 
duces nothing  upon  which  the  support  of  human  life 
depends  ? — In  like  manner  with  respect  to  foreign 
commerce;  of  that  merchandise  which  brings  the  ne- 
cessaries of  life  into  a  country,  which  imports,  for  ex- 
ample, corn,  or  cattle,  or  cloth,  or  fuel;  we  allow  the 
tendency  to  advance  population,  because  it  increases 
the  stock  of  provision  by  which  the  people  are  sub- 
sisted. But  this  effect  of  foreign  commerce  is  so  little 
seen  in  our  own  country,  that,  I  believe,  it  may  be 
affirmed  of  Great  Britain,  what  Bishop  Berkeley  said 
of  a  neighbouring  island,  that,  if  it  were  encompassed 
with  a  wall  of  brass  fifty  cubits  high,  the  country 
might  maintain  the  same  number  of  inhabitants  that 
find  subsistence  in  it  at  present;  and  that  every  neces- 
sary, and  even  every  real  comfort  and  accommodation, 
of  human  life,  might  be  supplied  in  as  great  abun- 
dance as  they  now  are.  Here,  therefore,  as  before, 
we  may  fairly  ask,  by  what  operation  it  is  that  foreign 
commerce,  which  brings  into  the  country  no  one  arti- 
cle of  human  subsistence,  promotes  the  multiplication 
of  human  life  ? 

The  answer  of  this  inquiry  will  be  contained  in  the 
discussion  of  another,  viz. 

Since  the  soil  will  maintain  many  more  than  it  can 
employ,  what  must  be  done,  supposing  the  country  to 
be  full,  with  the  remainder  of  the  inhabitants  ?  They 
who,  by  the  rules  of  partition  (and  some  such  must 
be  established  in  every  country,)  are  entitled  te  the 
land;  and  they  who,  by  their  labour  upon  th«  §oil, 


212  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

acquire  a  right  in  its  produce,  will  not  part  with  their 
property  for  nothing;  or  rather  they  will  no  longer 
raise  from  the  soil  what  they  can  neither  use  them- 
selves, nor  exchange  for  what  they  want.  Or,  lastly, 
if  these  were  willing  to  distribute  what  they  could 
spare  of  the  provision  which  the  ground  yielded,  to 
others  who  had  no  share  or  concern  in  the  property 
or  cultivation  of  it,  yet  still  the  most  enormous  mis- 
chiefs would  ensue  from  great  numbers  remaining  un- 
employed. The  idleness  of  one  half  of  the  commu- 
nity would  overwhelm  the  whole  with  confusion  and 
disorder.  One  only  way  presents  itself  of  removing 
the  difficulty  which  this  question  states,  and  which  is 
simply  this;  that  they,  whose  work  is  not  wanted,  nor 
can  be  employed,  in  the  raising  of  provision  out  of  the 
ground,  convert  their  hands  and  ingenuity  to  the  fabri- 
cation of  articles  which  may  gratify  and  requite  those 
who  are  so  employed,  or  who,  by  the  division  of  lands 
in  the  country,  are  entitled  to  the  exclusive  possession 
of  certain  parts  of  them.  By  this  contrivance,  all 
things  proceed  well.  The  occupier  of  the  ground 
raises  from  it  the  utmost  that  he  can  procure,  because 
he  is  repaid  for  what  he  can  spare  by  something  else 
which  he  wants,  or  with  which  he  is  pleased:  the 
artist  or  manufacturer,  though  he  have  neither  any 
property  in  the  soil,  nor  any  concern  in  its  cultivation, 
is  regularly  supplied  with  the  produce,  because  he 
gives,  in  exchange  for  what  he  stands  in  need  of, 
something  upon  which  the  receiver  places  an  equal 
value:  and  the  community  is  kept  quiet,  while  both 
sides  are  engaged  in  their  respective  occupations. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  business  of  one  half  of 
mankind  is  to  set  the  other  half  at  work;  that  is,  to 
provide  articles  which,  by  tempting  the  desires,  may 
stimulate  the  industry,  and  call  forth  the  activity  of 
those,  upon  the  exertion  of  whose  industry,  and  the 
application  of  whose  faculties,  the  production  of 
human  provision  depends.  A  certain  portion  only  of 
human  labour  is,  or  can  be,  productive  ;  the  rest  is 
instrumental; — both  equally  necessary,  though  the 
one  have  no  other  object  than  to  excite  the  other.  It 
appears  also,  that  it  signifies  nothing,  as  to  the  main 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE.  218 

purpose  of  trade,  how  superfluous  the  articles  which 
it  furnishes  are;  whether  the  want  of  them  be  real  or 
imaginary;  whether  it  be  founded  in  nature  or  in 
opinion,  in  fashion,  habit,  or  emulation:  it  is  enough 
that  they  be  actually  desired  and  sought  after.  Flour- 
ishing cities  are  raised  and  supported  by  trading  in 
tobacco;  populous  towns  subsist  by  the  manufacture 
of  ribands.  A  watch  may  be  a  very  unnecessary 
appendage  to  the  dress  of  a  peasant ;  yet  if  the  peasant 
will  till  the  ground  in  order  to  obtain  a  watch,  the 
true  design  of  trade  is  answered;  and  the  watch- 
maker, while  he  polishes  the  case,  or  files  the  wheels 
of  his  machine,  is  contributing  to  the  production  of 
corn  as  effectually,  though  not  so  directly,  as  if  he 
handled  the  spade  or  held  the  plough.  The  use  of 
tobacco  has  been  mentioned  already,  not  only  as  an 
acknowledged  superfluity,  but  as  affording  a  remarka- 
ble example  of  the  caprice  of  human  appetite:  yet, 
if  the  fisherman  will  ply  his  nets,  or  the  mariner  fetch 
"Vice  from  foreign  countries,  in  order  to  procure  to 
himself  this  indulgence,  the  market  is  supplied  with 
two  important  articles  of  provision,  by  the  instrumen- 
tality of  a  merchandise  which  has  no  other  apparent, 
use  than  the  gratification  of  a  vitiated  palate. 

But  it  may  come  to  pass  that  the  husbandman, 
landowner,  or  whoever  he  be  that  is  entitled  to  the 
produce  of  the  soil,  will  no  longer  exchange  it  for 
what  the  manufacturer  has  to  offer.  He  is  already 
supplied  to  the  extent  of  his  desires.  For  instance, 
he  wants  no  more  cloth;  he  will  no  longer  therefore 
give  the  weaver  corn  in  return  for  the  produce  of  his 
looms;  but  he  would  readily  give  it  for  tea,  or  for 
wine.  When  the  weaver  finds  this  to  be  the  case,  he 
has  nothing  to  do  but  to  send  his  cloth  abroad,  in  ex- 
change for  tea  or  for  wine,  which  he  may  barter  for 
that  provision  which  the  offer  of  his  cloth  will  no 
longer  procure.  The  circulation  is  thus  revived:  and 
the  benefit  of  the  discovery  is,  that  whereas  the  num- 
ber of  weavers,  who  could  find  subsistence  from  their 
employment,  was  before  limited  by  the  consumption 
of  cloth  in  the  country,  that  number  is  now  augment- 
ed, in  proportion  to  the  demand  for  tea  and  wine 


214  POPULATION,     PROVISION, 

This  is  the  principle  of  foreign  commerce.  In  the 
magnitude  and  complexity  of  the  machine,  the  princi- 
ple of  motion  is  sometimes  lost  or  unobserved:  but  it 
is  always  simple  and  the  same,  to  wnatever  extent  it 
may  be  diversified  and  enlarged  in  its  operation. 

The  effect  of  trade  upon  agriculture,  the  process 
of  which  we  have  been  endeavouring  to  describe,  is 
visible  in  the  neighbourhood  of  trading  towns,  and 
in  those  districts  which  carry  on  a  communication 
with  the  markets  of  trading  towns.  The  husband- 
men are  busy  and  skilful;  the  peasantry  laborious: 
the  land  is  managed  to  the  best  advantage;  and 
double  the  quantity  of  corn  or  herbage  (articles  which 
are  ultimately  converted  into  human  provision)  raised 
from  it,  of  what  the  same  soil  yields  in  remoter  and 
more  neglected  parts  of  the  country.  Wherever  a 
thriving  manufactory  finds  means  to  establish  itself, 
a  new  vegetation  springs  up  around  it.  I  believe  it 
is  true,  that- agriculture  never  arrives  at  any  consider- 
able, much  less  at  its  highest  degree  of  perfection, 
where  it  is  not  connected  with  trade,  that  is,  where 
the  demand  for  the  produce  is  not  increased  by  the 
consumption  of  trading  cities. 

Let  it  be  remembered,  then,  that  agriculture  is  the 
immediate  source  of  human  provision;  that  trade  con- 
duces to  the  production  of  provision  only  as  it  pro- 
motes agriculture;  that  the  whole  system  of  commerce, 
vast  and  various  as  it  is,  hath  no  other  public  impor- 
tance than  its  subserviency  to  this  end. 

We  return  to  the  proposition  we  laid  down,  "  that 
employment  universally  promotes  population."  From 
this  proposition  it  follows,  that  the  comparative  utility 
of  different  branches  of  national  commerce  is  mea- 
sured by  the  number  which  each  branch  employs. 
Upon  which  principle  a  scale  may  easily  be  con- 
structed, which  shall  assign  to  the  several  kinds  and 
divisions  of  foreign  trade  their  respective  degrees  of 
public  importance.  In  this  scale,  the  first  place 
belongs  to  the  exchange  of  wrought  goods  for  raw 
materials,  as  of  broad-cloth  for  raw  silk;  cutlery  for 
wool;  clocks  or  watches  for  iron,  flax,  and  furs; 
because  this  traffic  provides  a  market  for  the  labour 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE.  215 

that  has  already  been  expended,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  supplies  materials  for  new  industry.  Popula- 
tion always  flourishes  where  this  species  of  commerce 
obtains  to  any  considerable  degree.  It  is  the  cause 
of  employment,  or  the  certain  indication.  As  it  takes 
off  the  manufactures  of  the  country,  it  promotes  em- 
ployment; as  it  brings  in  raw  materials,  it  supposes 
the  existence  of  manufactories  in  the  country,  and  a 
demand  for  the  article  when  manufactured.  The 
second  place  is  due  to  that  commerce  which  barters 
one  species  of  wrought  goods  for  another,  as  stuffs 
for  calicoes,  fustians  for  cambrics,  leather  for  paper, 
or  wrought  goods  for  articles  which  require  no  further 
preparation,  as  for  wine,  oil,  tea,  sugar,  &c.  This 
also  assists  employment;  because,  when  the  country 
is  stocked  with  one  kind  of  manufacture,  it  renews 
the  demand  by  converting  it  into  another:  but  it  is 
inferior  to  the  former,  as  it  promotes  this  end  by  one 
side  only  of  the  bargain, — by  what  it  carries  out.— 
The  last,  the  lowest,  and  most  disadvantageous  spe- 
cies of  commerce,  is  the  exportation  of  raw  materials 
in  return  for  wrought  goods;  as  when  wool  is  sent 
abroad  to  purchase  velvets;  hides  or  peltry,  to  pro- 
cure shoes,  hats,  or  linen  cloth.  This  trade  is  unfa- 
vourable to  population,  because  it  leaves  no  room  or 
demand  for  employment,  either  in  what  it  takes  out 
of  the  country,  or  in  what  it  brings  into  it.  Its  ope- 
ration on  both  sides  is  noxious.  By  its  exports,  it 
diminishes  the  very  subjects  upon  which  the  industry 
of  the  inhabitants  ought  to  be  exercised;  by  its  im- 
ports, it  lessens  the  encouragement  of  that  industry, 
in  the  same  proportion  that  it  supplies  the  consump- 
tion of  the  country  with  the  produce  of  foreign  labour. 
Of  different  branches  of  manufacture,  those  are,  in 
their  nature,  the  most  beneficial,  in  which  the  price 
of  the  wrought  article  exceeds  in  the  highest  propor- 
tion thai  of  the  raw  material:  for  this  excess  measures 
the  quantity  of  employment,  or,  in  other  words,  the 
number  of  manufacturers  which  each  branch  sustains. 
The  produce  of  the  ground  is  never  the  most  advan- 
tageous article  of  foreign  commerce.  Under  a  per- 
fect state  of  public  economy,  the  soil  of  the  country 


216  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

should  be  applied  solely  to  the  raising  of  provisions 
for  the  inhabitants,  and  its  trade  be  supplied  by  their 
industry.  A  nation  will  never  reach  its  proper  ex- 
tent of  population,  so  long  as  its  principal  commerce 
consists  in  the  exportation  of  corn  or  cattle,  or  even 
of  wine,  oil,  tobacoo,  madder,  indigo,  timber;  because 
these  last  articles  take  up  that  surface  which  ought  to 
be  covered  with  the  materials  of  human  subsistence. 

It  must  be  here  however  noticed,  that  we  have  all 
along  considered  the  inhabitants  of  a  country  as  main- 
tained by  the  produce  of  the  country:  and  that  what 
we  have  said  is  applicable  with  strictness  to  this  sup- 
position alone.  The  reasoning,  nevertheless,  may 
easily  be  adapted  to  a  different  case:  for  when  pro- 
vision is  not  produced,  but  imported,  what  has  been 
affirmed  concerning  provision  will  be,  in  a  great 
measure,  true  of  that  article,  whether  it  be  money, 
produce,  or  labour,  which  is  exchanged  for  provision. 
Thus,  when  the  Dutch  raise  madder,  and  exchange  it 
for  corn;  or  when  the  people  of  America  plant  to- 
bacco, and  send  it  to  Europe  for  cloth;  the  cultiva- 
tion of  madder  and  tobacco  becomes  as  necessary  to 
the  subsistence  of  the  inhabitants,  and  by  conse- 
quence will  affect  the  state  of  population  in  these 
countries  as  sensibly  as  the  actual  production  of  food, 
or  the  manufacture  of  raiment.  In  like  manner, 
when  the  same  inhabitants  of  Holland  earn  money 
by  the  carriage  of  the  produce  of  one  country  to 
another,  and  with  that  money  purchase  the  provision 
from  abroad  which  their  own  land  is  not  extensive 
enough  to  supply,  the  increase  or  decline  of  this  car- 
rying trade  will  influence  the  numbers  of  the  people, 
no  less  than  similar  changes  would  do  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  soil. 

The  few  principles  already  established  will  enable 
us  to  describe  the  effects  upon  population  vvhicn  may 
be  expected  from  the  following  important  articles  of 
national  conduct  and  economy. 

1.  EMIGRATION. —  Emigration  may  be  either  the 
overflowing  of  a  country,  or  the  desertion.  As  the 
increase  of  the  species  is  indefinite;  and  the  number 
of  inhabitants  which  any  given  tract  or  surface  can 


AGRICULTURE    AND    COMMERCE.  217 

support,  finite;  it  is  evident  that  great  numbers  may 
be  constantly  leaving  a  country,  and  yet  the  country 
remain  constantly  full.  Or,  whatever  be  the  cause 
which  invincibly  limits  the  population  of  a  country; 
when  the  number  of  the  people  has  arrived  at  that 
limit,  the  progress  of  generation,  beside  continuing 
the  succession,  will  supply  multitudes  for  foreign 
emigration.  In  these  two  cases,  emigration  neither 
indicates  any  political  decay,  nor  in  truth  diminishes 
the  number  of  the  people;  nor  ought  to  be  prohibited 
or  discouraged.  But  emigrants  may  relinquish  their 
country,  from  a  sense  of  insecurity,  oppression,  an- 
noyance, and  inconveniency.  Neither  again  here  is 
it  emigration  which  wastes  the  people,  but  the  evils 
that  occasion  it.  It  would  be  in  vain,  if  it  were 
practicable,  to  confine  the  inhabitants  at  home:  for 
the  same  causes  which  drive  them  out  of  the  country, 
would  prevent  their  multiplication  if  they  remained 
in  it.  Lastly,  Men  may  be  tempted  to  change  their 
situation  by  the  allurement  of  a  better  climate,  of  a 
more  refined  or  luxurious  manner  of  living;  by  the 
prospect  of  wealth;  or,  sometimes,  by  the  mere  nomi- 
nal advantage  of  higher  wages  and  prices.  This 
class  of  emigrants,  with  whom  alone  the  laws  can 
interfere  with  effect,  will  never,  I  think,  be  numerous. 
With  the  generality  of  a  people,  the  attachment  of 
mankind  to  their  homes  and  countries,  the  irksome- 
ness  of  seeking  new  habitations,  and  of  living  amongst 
strangers,  will  outweigh,  so  long  as  men  possess  the 
necessaries  of  life  in  safety,  or  at  least  so  long  as  they 
can  obtain  a  provision  for  that  mode  of  subsistence 
which  the  class  of  citizens  to  which  they  belong  are 
accustomed  to  enjoy,  all  the  inducements  that  the 
advantages  of  a  foreign  land  can  offer.  There  ap- 
pear, therefore,  to  be  few  cases  in  which  emigration 
can  be  prohibited,  with  advantage  to  the  state;  it 
appears  also  that  emigration  is  an  equivocal  symptom, 
which  will  probably  accompany  the  decline  of  the  poli- 
tical body,  but  which  may  likewise  attend  a  condition 
of  perfect  health  and  vigour. 

2.  COLONIZATION. — The  only  view  under  which 
our   subject  will   permit   us  to  consider  colonization 

VOL,    II.  19 


218  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

is  in  its  tendency  to  augment  the  population  of  the 
parent  state. — Suppose  a  fertile,  but  empty  island,  to 
lie  within  the  reach  of  a  country  in  which  arts  and 
manufactures  are  already  established;  suppose  a  colo- 
ny sent  out  from  such  a  country,  to  take  possession 
of  the  island,  and  to  live  there  under  the  protection 
and  authority  of  their  native  government:  the  new 
settlers  will  naturally  convert  their  labour  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  vacant  soil,  and  with  the  produce  of 
that  soil  will  draw  a  supply  of  manufactures  from 
their  countrymen  at  home.  Whilst  the  inhabitants 
continue  few,  and  lands  cheap  and  fresh,  the  colonists 
will  find  it  easier  and  more  profitable  to  raise  corn  or 
rear  cattle,  and  with  corn  and  cattle  to  purchase 
woollen  cloth,  for  instance,  or  linen,  than  to  spin  or 
weave  these  articles  for  themselves.  The  mother 
country,  meanwhile,  derives  from  this  connexion  an 
increase  both  of  provision  and  employment.  It  pro- 
motes at  once  the  two  great  requisites  upon  which 
the  facility  of  subsistence,  and  by  consequence  the 
state  of  population,  depend — production  and  distribu- 
tion; and  this  in  a  manner  the  most  direct  and  bene- 
ficial. No  situation  can  be  imagined  more  favourable 
to  population  than  that  of  a  country  which  works  up 
goods  for  others,  whilst  these  others  are  cultivating 
new  tractg  of  land  for  them;  for  as,  in  a  genial 
climate  and  from  a  fresh  soil,  the  labour  of  one  man 
will  raise  provision  enough  for  ten,  it  is  manifest  that, 
where  all  are  employed  in  agriculture,  much  the 
greater  part  of  the  produce  will  be  spared  from  the 
consumption;  and  that  three  out  of  four,  at  least,  of 
those  who  are  maintained  by  it,  will  reside  in  the 
country  which  receives  the  redundancy.  When  the 
new  country  does  not  remit  provision  to  the  old  one, 
the  advantage  is  less;  but  still  the  exportation  of 
wrought  goods,  by  whatever  return  they  are  paid  for, 
advances  population  in  that  secondary  way,  in  which 
those  trades  promote  it  that  are  not  employed  in  the 
production  of  provision.  Whatever  prejudice,  there- 
fore, some  late  events  have  excited  against  schemes 
of  colonization,  the  system  itself  is  founded  in  appa- 
rent national  utility;  and  what  is  more,  upon  princi- 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE.  219 

pies  favourable  to  the  common  interest  of  human  na- 
ture, for  it  does  not  appear  by  what  other  method 
newly  discovered  and  unfrequented  countries  can  be 
peopled,  or  during  the  infancy  of  their  establishment 
be  protected  or  supplied.  The  error,  which  we  of 
this  nation  at  present  lament,  seems  to  have  consisted 
not  so  much  in  the  original  formation  of  colonies,  as 
in  the  subsequent  management;  in  imposing  restric- 
tions too  rigorous,  or  in  continuing  them  too  long; 
in  not  perceiving  the  point  of  time  when  the  irresisti- 
ble order  and  progress  of  human  affairs  demand  a 
change  of  laws  and  policy. 

3.  MONEY. — Where  money  abounds,  the  people 
are  generally  numerous:  yet  gold  and  silver  neither 
feed  nor  clothe  mankind;  nor  are  they  in  all  countries 
converted  into  provision  by  purchasing  the  necessa- 
ries of  life  at  foreign  markets;  nor  do  they,  in  any 
rountry,  compose  those  articles  of  personal  or  domes- 
tic ornament,  which  certain  orders  of  the  community 
have  learned  to  regard  as  necessaries  of  life,  and 
without  the  means  of  procuring  which  they  will  not 
enter  into  family  establishments: — at  least  this  pro- 
perty of  the  precious  metals  obtains  in  a  very  small 
degree.  The  effect  of  money  upon  the  number  of  the 
people,  though  visible  to  observation,  is  not  explained 
without  some  difficulty.  To  understand  this  connexion 
properly,  we  must  return  to  the  proposition  with  which 
we  concluded  our  reasoning  upon  the  subject;  "  that 
population  is  chiefly  promoted  by  employment."  Now, 
of  employment,  money  is  partly  the  indication,  and 
partly  the  cause.  The  only  way  in  which  money 
regularly  and  spontaneously  flows  into  a  country  is  in 
return  for  the  goods  that  are  sent  out  of  it,  or  the 
work  that  is  performed  by  it;  and  the  only  way  in 
which  money  is  retained  in  a  country,  is  by  the  coun- 
try's supplying,  in  a  great  measure,  its  own  consump- 
tion of  manufactures.  Consequently,  the  quantity  of 
money  found  in  a  country  denotes  the  amount  of  la- 
bour and  employment  :  but  still,  employment,  not 
money,  is  the  cause  of  population;  the  accumulation 
of  money  being  merely  a  collateral  effect  of  the  same 
cause,  or  a  circumstance  which  accompanies  the  ex- 


220  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

istence,  and  measures  the  operation  of  that  cause. 
And  this  is  true  of  money,  only  whilst  it  is  acquired 
by  the  industry  of  the  inhabitants.  The  treasures 
which  belong  to  a  country  by  the  possession  of  mines, 
or  by  the  exaction  of  tribute  from  foreign  dependen- 
cies, afford  no  conclusion -concerning  the  state  of 
population.  The  influx  from  these  sources  may  be 
immense,  and  yet  the  country  remain  poor  and  ill 
peopled;  of  which  we  see  an  egregious  example  in 
the  condition  of  Spain,  since  the  acquisition  of  its 
South  American  dominions. 

But,  secondly,  Money  may  become  also  a  real  and 
an  operative  cause  of  population,  by  acting  as  a  stimu- 
lus to  industry,  and  by  facilitating  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. The  ease  of  subsistence,  and  the  encourage- 
ment of  industry,  depend  neither  upon  the  price  of 
labour,  nor  upon  the  price  of  provision,  but  upon  the 
proportion  which  one  bears  to  the  other.  Now  the 
influx  of  money  into  a  country  naturally  tends  to  ad- 
vance this  proportion;  that  is,  every  fresh  accession 
of  money  raises  the  price  of  labour  before  it  raises  the 
price  of  provision.  When  money  is  brought  from 
abroad,  the  persons,  be  they  who  they  will,  into 
whose  hands  it  first  arrives,  do  not  buy  up  provision 
with  it,  but  apply  it  to  the  purchase  and  payment  of 
labour.  If  the  state  receives  it,  the  state  dispenses 
what  it  receives  amongst  soldiers,  sailors,  artificers, 
engineers,  shipwrights,  workmen; — if  private  persons 
bring  home  treasures  of  gold  and  silver,  they  usually 
expend  them  in  the  building  of  houses,  the  improve- 
ment of  estates,  the  purchase  of  furniture,  dress,  equi- 
page, in  articles  of  luxury  or  splendour; — if  the  mer- 
chant be  enriched  by  returns  of  his  foreign  commerce, 
he  applies  his  increased  capital  to  the  enlargement  of 
his  business  at  home.  The  money  ere  long  comes  to 
market  for  provision;  but  it  comes  thither  through  the 
hands  of  the  manufacturer,  the  artist,  the  husband- 
man, and  labourer.  Its  effects,  therefore,  upon  the  price 
of  art  and  labour,  will  precede  its  effect  upon  the  price 
of  provision;  and  during  the  interval  between  one 
effect  and  the  other,  the  means  of  subsistence  will  be 
multiplied  and  facilitated,  as  well  as  industry  be  ex- 


AGRICULTURE   AND   COMMERCE.  221 

cited  by  new  rewards.  When  the  greater  plenty  of 
money  in  circulation  has  produced  an  advance  in  the 
price  of  provision,  corresponding  to  the  advanced 
price  of  labour,  its  effect  ceases.  The  labourer  no 
longer  gains  any  thing  by  the  increase  of  his  wages. 
It  if  not,  therefore,  the  quantity  of  specie  collected 
into  a  country,  but  the  continual  increase  of  that 
quantity,  from  which  the  advantage  arises  to  employ- 
ment and  population.  It  is  only  the  accession  of 
money  which  produces  the  effect,  and  it  is  only  by 
money  constantly  flowing  into  a  country  that  the  ef- 
fect can  be  constant.  Now,  whatever  consequence 
arises  to  the  country  from  the  influx  of  money,  the 
contrary  may  be  expected  to  follow  from  the  diminu- 
tion of  its  quantity:  and  accordingly  we  find,  that 
whatever  cause  drains  off  the  specie  of  a  country, 
faster  than  the  streams  which  feed  it  can  supply,  not 
only  impoverishes  the  country,  but  depopulates  it. 
The  knowledge  and  experience  of  this  effect  have 
given  occasion  to  a  phrase  which  occurs  in  almost, 
every  discourse  upon  commerce  or  politics.  The 
balance,  of  trade  with  any  foreign  nation  is  said  to  be 
against  or  in  favour  of  a  country,  simply  as  it  tends  to 
carry  money  out,  or  bring  it  in;  that  is,  according  as 
the  price  of  the  imports  exceeds  or  falls  short  of  the 
price  of  the  exports:  so  invariably  is  the  increase  or 
diminution  of  the  specie  of  a  country  regarded  as  a 
test  of  the  public  advantage  or  detriment  which  arises 
from  any  branch  of  its  commerce. 

4.  TAXATION. — As  taxes  take  nothing  out  of  a 
country;  as  they  do  not  diminish  the  public  stock, 
only  vary  the  distribution  of  it;  they  are  not  neces- 
sarily prejudicial  to  population.  If  the  state  exact 
money  from  certain  members  of  the  community,  she 
dispenses  it  also  amongst  other  members  of  the  same 
community.  They  who  contribute  to  the  revenue, 
and  they  who  are  supported  or  benefited  by  the  ex- 
penses of  government,  are  to  be  placed  one  against 
the  other:  and  whilst  what  the  subsistence  of  one  part 
is  profiting  by  receiving,  compensates,  for  what  that 
of  the  other  suffers  by  paying,  the  common  fund  of 
the  society  is  not  lessened.  This  is  true:  but  it  must 

VOL.   II.  19  * 


POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

be  observed,  that  although  the  sum  distributed  by  the 
state  be  always  equal  to  the  sum  collected  from  the 
people,  yet  the  gain  and  loss  to  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence may  be  very  unequal;  and  the  balance  will  re- 
main on  the  wrong  or  the  right  side  of  the  account,  ac- 
cording as  the  money  passes  by  taxation  from  the  in- 
dustrious to  the  idle,  from  the  many  to  the  few,  from 
those  who  want  to  those  who  abound,  or  in  a  contrary 
direction.  For  instance:  a  tax  upon  coaches,  to  be 
laid  out  in  the  repair  of  roads,  would  probably  improve 
the  population  of  a  neighbourhood;  a  tax  upon  cot- 
tages, to  be  ultimately  expended  in  the  purchase  and 
support  of  coaches,  would  certainly  diminish  it.  In 
like  mariner,  a  tax  upon  wine  or  tea,  distributed  in 
bounties  to  fishermen  or  husbandmen,  would  augment 
the  provision  of  a  country;  a  tax  upon  fisheries  and 
husbandry,  however  indirect  or  concealed,  to  be  con- 
verted, when  raised,  to  the  procuring  of  wine  or  tea 
for  the  idle  and  opulent,  would  naturally  impair  the 
public  stock.  The  effect,  therefore,  of  taxes  upon  the 
means  of  subsistence  depends  not  so  much  upon  the 
amount  of  the  sum  levied,  as  upon  the  object  of  the 
tax  and  the  application.  Taxes  likewise  may  be  so 
adjusted  as  to  conduce  to  the  restraint  of  luxury,  and 
the  correction  of  vice;  to  the  encouragement  of  indus- 
try, trade,  agriculture  and  marriage.  Taxes  thus 
contrived,  become  rewards  and  penalties;  not  only 
sources  of  revenue,  but  instruments  of  police.  Vices 
indeed  themselves  cannot  be  taxed,  without  holding 
forth  such  a  conditional  toleration  of  them  as  to  de- 
stroy men's  perception  of  their  guilt;  a  tax  comes  to 
be  considered  as  a  commutation:  the  materials,  how- 
ever, and  incentives  of  vice  may.  Although,  for  in- 
stance, drunkenness  would  be,  on  this  account,  an 
unfit  object  of  taxation,  yet  public  houses  and  spir- 
ituous liquors  are  very  properly  subjected  to  heavy 
imposts. 

Nevertheless,  although  it  may  be  true  that  taxes 
cannot  be  pronounced  to  be  detrimental  to  population, 
by  any  absolute  necessity  in  their  nature;  and  though, 
under  some  modifications,  and  when  urged  only  to  a 
certain  extent,  they  may  even  operate  in  favour  of 


AGRICULTURE    AND    COMMERCE.  223 

it;  yet  it  will  be  found,  in  a  great  plurality  of  in- 
stances, that  their  tendency  is  noxious.  Let  it  be 
supposed  that  nine  families  inhabit  a  neighbourhood, 
each  possessing  barely  the  means  of  subsistence,  or  of 
that  mode  of  subsistence  which  custom  hath  estab- 
lished amongst  them;  let  a  tenth  family  be  quartered 
upon  these,  to  be  supported  by  a  tax  raised  from  the 
nine;  or  rather,  let  one  of  the  nine  have  his  income 
augmented  by  a  similar  deduction  from  the  incomes 
of  the  rest:  in  either  of  these  cases,  it  is  evident  that 
the  whole  district  would  be  broken  up;  for  as  the 
entire  income  of  each  is  supposed  to  be  barely  suffi- 
cient for  the  establishment  which  it  maintains,  a  de- 
duction of  any  part  destroys  that  establishment.  Now 
it  is  no  answer  to  this  objection,  it  is  no  apology  for 
the  grievance,  to  say,  that  nothing  is  taken  out  of  the 
neighbourhood;  that  the  stock  is  not  diminished:  the 
mischief  is  done  by  deranging  the  distribution.  Nor, 
again,  is  the  luxury  of  one  family,  or  even  the  main- 
tenance of  an  additional  family,  a  recompense  to  the 
country  for  the  ruin  of  nine  others.  Nor,  lastly,  will 
it  alter  the  effect,  though  it  may  conceal  the  cause, 
that  the  contribution,  instead  of  being  levied  directly 
upon  each  day's  wages,  is  mixed  up  in  the  price  of 
some  articles  of  constant  use  and  consumption,  as  in  a 
tax  upon  candles,  malt,  leather,  or  fuel.  This  example 
illustrates  the  tendency  of  taxes  to  obstruct  subsist 
ence;  and  the  minutest  degree  of  this  obstruction  will 
be  felt  in  the  formation  of  families.  The  example, 
indeed,  forms  an  extreme  case;  the  evil  is  magnified^ 
in  order  to  render  its  operation  distinct  and  visible. 
In  real  life,  families  may  not  be  broken  up,  or  forced 
from  their  habitation,  houses  be  quitted,  or  countries 
suddenly  deserted,  in  consequence  of  any  new  impo- 
sition whatever;  but  marriages  will  become  gradually 
less  frequent. 

It  seems  necessary,  however,  to  distinguish  between 
the  operation  of  a  new  tax,  and  the  effect  of  taxes 
which  have  been  long  established.  In  the  course  of 
circulation,  the  money  may  flow  back  to  the  hands 
from  which  it  was  taken.  The  proportion  between 
the  supply  and  the  expense  of  subsistence,  which  had 


224  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

been  disturbed  by  the  tax,  may  at  length  recover  itself 
again.  In  the  instance  just  now  stated,  the  addition 
of  a  tenth  family  to  the  neighbourhood,  or  the  enlarged 
expenses  of  one  of  the  nine,  may,  in  some  shape  or 
other,  so  advance  the  profits,  or  increase  the  employ- 
ment, of  the  rest,  as  to  make  full  restitution  for  the 
share  of  their  property  of  which  it  deprives  them;  or, 
what  is  more  likely  to  happen,  a  reduction  may  take 
place  in  their  mode  of  living,  suited  to  the  abridgment 
of  their  incomes.  Yet  still  the  ultimate  and  perma- 
nent effect  of  taxation,  though  distinguishable  from 
the  impression  of  a  new  tax,  is  generally  adverse  to 
population.  The  proportion  above  spoken  of  can 
only  be  restored  by  one  side  or  other  of  the  following 
alternative:  by  the  people  either  contracting  their 
wants,  which  at  the  same  time  diminishes  consumption 
and  employment;  or  by  raising  the  price  of  labour, 
which  necessarily  adding  to  the  price  of  the  produc- 
tions and  manufactures  of  the  country,  checks  their 
sale  at  foreign  markets.  A  nation  which  is  burdened 
with  taxes  must  always  be  undersold  by  a  nation  which 
is  free  from  them,  unless  the  difference  be  made  up 
by  some  singular  advantage  of  climate,  soil,  skill,  or 
industry.  This  quality  belongs  to  all  taxes  which 
affect  the  mass  of  the  community,  even  when  imposed 
upon  the  properest  objects,  and  applied  to  the  fairest 
purposes.  But  abuses  are  inseparable  from  the  dis- 
posal of  public  money.  As  governments  are  usually 
administered,  the  produce  of  public  taxes  is  expended 
upon  a  train  of  gentry,  in  the  maintaining  of  pomp, 
or  in  the  purchase  of  influence.  The  conversion  of 
property  which  taxes  effectuate,  when  they  are  em- 
ployed in  this  manner,  is  attended  with  obvious  evils. 
Jt  takes  from  the  industrious  to  give  to  the  idle;  it 
increases  the  number  of  the  latter;  it  tends  to  accu- 
mulation; it  sacrifices  the  conveniency  of  many  to  the 
luxury  of  a  few;  it  makes  no  return  to  the  people, 
from  whom  the  tax  is  drawn,  that  is  satisfactory  or 
intelligible;  it  encourages  no  activity  which  is  useful 
or  productive. 

The   sum  to  be  raised  being  settled,  a  wise  states- 
man will  contrive  his  taxes  principally  with  a  view  t© 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE.  225 

their  effect  upon  population  ;  that  is,  he  will  so  adjust 
them  as  to  give  the  least  possible  obstruction  to  those 
means  of  subsistence  by  which  the  mass  of  the  com- 
munity is  maintained.  We  are  accustomed  to  an 
opinion,  that  a  tax,  to  be  just,  ought  to  be  accurately 
proportioned  to  the  circumstances  of  the  persons  who 
pay  it.  But  upon  what,  it  might  be  asked,  is  this 
opinion  founded  ?  unless  it  could  be  shown  that  such 
a  proportion  interferes  the  least  with  the  general  con- 
veniertcy  of  subsistence:  whereas  I  should  rather  be- 
lieve, that  a  tax,  constructed  with  a  view  to  that  con- 
veniency,  ought  to  rise  upon  the  different  classes  of 
the  community,  in  a  much  higher  ratio  than  the  simple 
proportion  of  their  incomes.  The  point  to  be  regarded 
is,  not  what  men  have,  but  what  they  can  spare;  and 
it  is  evident  that  a  man  who  possesses  a  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  can  more  easily  give  up  a  hundred, 
than  a  man  with  a  hundred  pounds  a  year  can  part 
with  ten:  that  is,  those  habits  of  life  which  are  rea- 
sonable and  innocent,  and  upon  the  ability  to  continue 
which  the  formation  of  families  depends,  will  be  much 
less  affected  by  the  one  deduction  than  the  other.  It 
is  still  more  evident,  that  a  man  of  a  hundred  pounds 
a  year  would  not  be  so  much  distressed  in  his  subsist- 
ence, by  a  demand  from  him  of  ten  pounds,  as  a  man 
of  ten  pounds  a  year  would  by  the  loss  of  one:  to 
which  we  must  add,  that  the  population  of  every 
country  being  replenished  by  the  marriages  of  the 
lowest  ranks  of  the  society,  their  accommodation  and 
relief  become  of  more  importance  to  the  state,  than 
the  conveniency  of  any  higher  but  less  numerous  order 
of  its  citizens.  But  whatever  be  the  proportion  which 
public  expediency  directs,  whether  the  simple,  the 
duplicate,  or  any  higher  or  intermediate  proportion 
of  men's  incomes,  it  can  never  be  attained  by  any 
single  tax;  as  no  single  object  of  taxation  can  be 
found,  which  measures  the  ability  of  the  subject  with 
sufficient  generality  and  exactness.  It  is  only  by  a 
system  and  variety  of  taxes  mutually  balancing  and 
equalizing  one  another,  that  a  due  proportion  can  be 
preserved.  For  instance:  if  a  tax  upon  lands  press 
with  greater  hardship  upon  those  who  live  in  the 


226  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

country,  it  may  be  properly  counterpoised  by  a  tax 
upon  the  rent  of  houses,  which  will  affect  principally 
the  inhabitants  of  large  towns.  Distinctions  may  also 
be  framed  in  some  taxes,  which  shall  allow  abatements 
or  exemptions  to  married  persons;  to  the  parents  of  a 
certain  number  of  legitimate  children;  to  improvers 
of  the  soil;  to  particular  modes  of  cultivation,  as  to 
tillage  in  preference  to  pasturage;  and  in  general  to 
that  industry  which  is  immediately  productive,  in  pre- 
ference to  that  which  is  only  instrumental;  but  above 
all,  which  may  leave  the  heaviest  part  of  the  burden 
upon  the  methods,  whatever  they  be,  of  acquiring 
wealth  without  industry,  or  even  of  subsisting  in 
idleness. 

5.  EXPORTATION  OF  BREAD-CORN. — Nothing 
seems  to  have  a  more  positive  tendency  to  reduce  the 
number  of  the  people  than  the  sending  abroad  part  of 
the  provision  by  which  they  are  maintained;  yet  this 
has  been  the  policy  of  legislators  very  studious  of  the 
improvement  of  their  country.  In  order  to  reconcile 
ourselves  to  a  practice  which  appears  to  militate  with 
the  chief  interest,  that  is,  with  the  population  of  the 
country  that  adopts  it,  we  must  be  reminded  of  a 
maxim  which  belongs  to  the  productions  both  of  nature 
and  art, «'  that  it  is  impossible  to  have  enough  without 
a  superfluity."  The  point  of  sufficiency  cannot,  in 
any  case,  be  so  exactly  hit  upon,  as  to  have  nothing 
to  spare,  yet  never  to  want.  This  is  peculiarly  true  of 
bread-corn,  of  which  the  annual  increase  is  extremely 
variable.  As  it  is  necessary  that  the  crop  be  adequate 
to  the  consumption  in  a  year  of  scarcity,  it  must,  of 
consequence,  greatly  exceed  it  in  a  year  of  plenty. 
A  redundancy  therefore  will  occasionally  arise  from 
the  very  care  that  is  taken  to  secure  the  people  against 
the  danger  of  want;  and  it  is  manifest  that  the  expor- 
tation of  this  redundancy  subtracts  nothing  from  the 
number  that  can  regularly  be  maintained  by  the  pro- 
duce of  the  soil.  Moreover,  ad  the  exportation  of 
corn  under  these  circumstances  is  attended  with  no 
direct  injury  to  population,  so  the  benefits  which  in- 
directly arise  to  population  from  foreign  commerce 
belong  to  this,  in  common  with  other  species  of  trade* 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE.  227 

together  with  the  peculiar  advantage  of  presenting  a 
constant  incitement  to  the  skill  and  industry  of  the 
husbandman,  by  the  promise  of  a  certain  sale  and  ao 
adequate  price,  under  every  contingency  of  season 
and  produce.  There  is  another  situation,  in  which 
corn  may  not  only  be  exported,  but  in  which  the 
people  can  thrive  by  no  other  means;  that  is,  of  a 
newly  settled  country  with  a  fertile  soil.  The  expor- 
tation of  a  large  proportion  of  the  corn  which  a 
country  produces  proves,  it  is  true,  that  the  inhab- 
itants have  not  yet  attained  to  the  number  which  the 
country  is  capable  of  maintaining;  but  it  does  not 
prove  but  that  they  may  be  hastening  to  this  limit 
with  the  utmost  practicable  celerity,  which  is  the  per- 
fection to  be  sought  for  in  a  young  establishment.  In 
all  cases  except  these  two,  and  in  the  former  of  them 
to  a  greater  degree  than  what  is  necessary  to  take 
off  occasional  redundancies,  the  exportation  of  corn  is 
either  itself  noxious  to  population,  or  argues  a  defect 
of  population,  arising  from  some  other  cause. 

6.  ABRIDGEMENT  OF  LABOUR. — It  has  long  been 
made  a  question,  whether  those  mechanical  contri- 
vances which  abridge  labour,  by  performing  the  same 
work  by  fewer  hands,  be  detrimental  or  not  to  the 
population  of  a  country.  From  what  has  been  de- 
livered in  preceding  parts  of  the  present  chapter, 
it  will  be  evident  that  this  question  is  equivalent  to 
another, — whether  such  contrivances  diminish  or  not 
the  quantity  of  employment  ?  Their  first  and  most 
obvious  effect  undoubtedly  is  this  :  because,  if  one 
man  be  made  to  do  what  three  men  did  before,  two 
are  immediately  discharged:  but  if,  by  some  more 
general  and  remoter  consequence,  they  increase  the 
demand  for  work,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  prevent 
the  diminution  of  that  demand,  in  a  greater  proportion 
than  they  contract  the  number  of  hands  by  which  it 
is  performed,  the  quantity  of  employment,  upon  the 
whole,  will  gain  an  addition.  Upon  which  principle 
it  may  be  observed,  first,  that  whenever  a  mechanical 
invention  succeeds  in  one  place,  it  is  necessary  that  it 
be  imitated  in  every  other  where  the  same  manufac- 
ture is  carried  on:  for  it  is  manifest,  that  he  who  has 


228  POPULATION,  PROVISION, 

the  benefit  of  a  conciser  operation  will  soon  outvie 
and  undersell  a  competitor  who  continues  to  use  a 
more  circuitous  labour.  It  is  also  true,  in  the  second 
place,  that  whoever  first  discover  or  adopt  a  mecha- 
nical improvement  will,  for  some  time,  draw  to  them- 
selves an  increase  of  employment;  and  that  this  pre- 
ference may  continue  even  after  the  improvement  has 
become  general;  for,  in  every  kind  of  trade,  it  is  not 
only  a  great  but  permanent  advantage,  to  have  once 
preoccupied  the  public  reputation.  Thirdly,  after 
every  superiority  which  might  be  derived  from  the 
possession  of  a  secret  has  ceased,  it  may  be  well  ques- 
tioned whether  even  then  any  loss  can  accrue  to  em- 
ployment. The  same  money  will  be  spared  to  the 
same  article  still.  Wherefore,  in  proportion  as  the 
article  can  be  afforded  at  a  lower  price,  by  reason  of 
an  easier  or  shorter  process  in  the  manufacture,  it  will 
either  grow  into  more  general  use,  or  an  improvement 
will  take  place  in  the  quality  and  fabric,  which  will 
demand  a  proportionable  addition  of  hands.  The 
number  of  persons  employed  in  the  manufactory  of 
stockings  has  not,  I  apprehend,  decreased  since  the 
invention  of  stocking  mills.  The  amount  of  what  is 
expended  upon  the  article,  after  subtracting  from  it 
the  price  of  the  raw  material,  and  consequently  what 
is  paid  for  work  in  this  branch  of  our  manufactories, 
is  not  less  than  it  was  before.  Goods  of  a  finer  tex- 
ture are  worn  in  the  place  of  coarser.  This  is  the 
change  which  the  invention  has  produced;  and  which 
compensates  to  the  manufactory  for  every  other  in- 
conveniency.  Add  to  which,  that  in  the  above,  and 
in  almost  every  instance,  an  improvement  which  con- 
duces to  the  recommendation  of  a  manufactory,  either 
by  the  cheapness  or  the  quality  of  the  goods,  draws 
up  after  it  many  dependent  employments,  in  which  no 
abbreviation  has  taken  place. 


FROM  the  reasoning  that  has  been  pursued,  and  the 
various  considerations  suggested  in  this  chapter,  a 
judgment  may,  in  some  sort,  be  formed,  how  far  regu- 


AGRICULTURE  AND   COMMERCE.  229 

lations  of  law  are  in  their  nature  capable  of  contri- 
buting to  the  support  and  advancement  of  population. 
I  say  how  far  :  for,  as  in  many  subjects,  so  especially 
in  those  which  relate  to  commerce,  to  plenty,  to  riches, 
and  to  the  number  of  people,  more  is  wont  to  be  ex- 
pected from  laws,  than  laws  can  do.  Laws  can  only 
imperfectly  restrain  that  dissoluteness  of  manners, 
which,  by  diminishing  the  frequency  of  marriages, 
impairs  the  very  source  of  population.  Laws  cannot 
regulate  the  wants  of  mankind,  their  mode  of  living, 
or  their  desire  of  those  superfluities  which  fashion, 
more  irresistible  than  laws,  has  once  introduced  into 
general  usage;  or,  in  other  words,  has  erected  into 
necessaries  of  life.  Laws  cannot  induce  men  to  Qnter 
into  marriages,  when  the  expenses  of  a  family  must 
deprive  them  of  that  system  of  accommodation  to 
which  they  have  habituated  their  expectations.  Laws, 
by  their  protection,  by  assuring  to  the  labourer  the 
fruit  and  profit  of  his  labour,  may  help  to  make  a 
people  industrious;  but,  without  industry,  the  laws 
cannot  provide  either  subsistence  or  employment:  laws 
cannot  make  corn  grow  without  toil  and  care,  or  trade 
flourish  without  art  and  diligence.  In  spite  of  all 
laws,  the  expert,  laborious,  honest  workman  will  be 
employed,  in  preference  to  the  lazy,  the  unskilful,  the 
fraudulent,  and  evasive:  and  this  is  not  more  true  of 
two  inhabitants  of  the  same  village,  than  it  is  of  the 
people  of  two  different  countries,  which  communicate 
either  with  each  other,  or  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
The  natural  basis  of  trade  is  rivalship  of  quality  and 
price;  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  of  skill  and  indus- 
try. Every  attempt  to  force  trade  by  operation  of 
law,  that  is,  by  compelling  persons  to  buy  goods  at 
one  market,  which  they  can  obtain  cheaper  and  better 
from  another,  is  sure  to  be  either  eluded  by  the  quick- 
sightedness  and  incessant  activity  of  private  interest, 
or  to  be  frustrated  by  retaliation.  One  half  of  the 
commercial  laws  of  many  states  are  calculated  merely 
to  counteract  the  restrictions  which  have  been  impos- 
ed by  other  estates.  Perhaps  the  only  way  in  which 
the  interposition  of  the  law  is  salutary  in  trade  is  in 
the  prevention  of  frauds. 

VOL   ii.  20 


280  POPULATION,    PROVISION, 

Next  to  the  indispensable  requisites  of  internal  peace 
and  security,  the  chief  advantage  which  can  be  de- 
rived to  population  from  the  interference  of  law  ap- 
pears to  me  to  consist  in  the  encouragement  of  agri- 
culture. This,  at  least,  is  the  direct  way  of  increasing 
the  number  of  the  people:  every  other  mode  being 
effectual  only  by  its  influence  upon  this.  Now  the 
principal  expedient,  by  which  such  a  purpose  can  be 
promoted,  is  to  adjust  the  laws  of  property,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  to  the  two  following  rules:  first,  "  to  give 
to  the  occupier  all  the  power  over  the  soil  which  is 
necessary  for  its  perfect  cultivation;" — secondly,  "  to 
assign  the  whole  profit  of  every  improvement  to  the 
perspns  by  whose  activity  it  is  carried  on."  What 
we  call  property  in  land,  as  hath  been  observed  above, 
is  power  over  it.  Now  it  is  indifferent  to  the  public 
in  whose  hands  this  power  resides,  if  it  be  rightly 
used,  it  matters  not  to  whom  the  land  belongs,  if  it 
be  well  cultivated.  When  we  lament  that  great 
estates  are  often  united  in  the  same  hand,  or  complain 
that  one  man  possesses  what  would  be  sufficient  for  a 
thousand,  we  suffer  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  words. 
The  owner  of  ten  thousand  pounds  a  year  consumes 
little  more  of  the  produce  of  the  soil  than  the  owner 
of  ten  pounds  a  year.  If  the  cultivation  be  equal, 
the  estate,  in  the  hands  of  one  great  lord,  affords 
subsistence  and  employment  to  the  same  number  of 
persons  as  it  would  do  if  it  were  divided  amongst  a 
hundred  proprietors.  In  like  manner  we  ought  to 
judge  of  the  effect  upon  the  public  interest,  which 
may  arise  from  lands  being  holden  by  the  king,  or  by 
the  subject;  by  private  persons,  or  by  corporations; 
by  laymen,  or  ecclesiastics;  in  fee,  or  for  life;  by 
virtue  of  office,  or  in  right  of  inheritance.  I  do  not 
mean  that  these  varieties  make  no  difference,  but  I 
mean  that  all  the  difference  they  do  make  respects  the 
cultivation  of  the  lands  which  are  so  holden. 

There  exists  in  this  country  conditions  of  tenure 
which  condemn  the  land  itself  to  perpetual  sterility. 
Of  this  kind  is  the  right  of  common,  which  precludes 
each  proprietor  from  the  improvement,  or  even  the 
convenient  occupation,  of  his  estate,  without  (what 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE.  231 

seldom  can  be  obtained)  the  consent  of  many  others. 
This  tenure  is  also  usually  embarrassed  by  the  inter- 
ference of  manorial  claims,  under  which  it  often  hap- 
pens that  the  surface  belongs  to  one  owner,  and  the 
soil  to  another;  so  that  neither  owner  can  stir  a  clod 
without  the  concurrence  of  his  partner  in  the  property. 
In  many  manors,  the  tenant  is  restrained  from  granting 
leases  beyond  a  short  term  of  years,  which  renders 
every  plan  of  solid  improvement  inpracticable.  In 
these  cases,  the  owner  wants,  what  the  first  rule  of 
rational  policy  requires,  "  sufficient  power  over  the 
soil  for  its  perfect  cultivation."  This  power  ought  to 
be  extended  to  him  by  some  easy  and  general  law  of 
enfranchisement,  partition,  and  enclosure;  which, 
though  compulsory  upon  the  lord,  or  the  rest  of  the 
tenants,  whilst  it  has  in  view  the  melioration  of  the 
soil,  and  tenders  an  equitable  compensation  for  every 
right  that  it  takes  away,  is  neither  more  arbitrary,  nor 
more  dangerous  to  the  stability  of  property,  than  that 
which  is  done  in  the  construction  of  roads,  bridges, 
embankments,  navigable  canals,  and  indeed  in  almost 
every  public  work,  in  which  private  owners  of  land  are 
obliged  to  accept  that  price  for  their  property  which 
an  indifferent  jury  may  award.  It  may  here,  however, 
be  proper  to  observe,  that  although  the  enclosure  of 
wastes  and  pastures  be  generally  beneficial  to  popu- 
lation, yet  the  enclosure  of  lands  in  tillage,  in  order  to 
convert  them  into*  pastures,  is  as  generally  hurtful. 

But,  secondly,  Agriculture  is  discouraged  by  every 
constitution  of  landed  property  which  lets  in  those, 
who  have  no  concern  in  the  improvement,  to  a  parti- 
cipation of  the  profit.  This  objection  is  applicable  to 
all  such  customs  of  manors  as  subject  the  proprietor, 
upon  the  death  of  the  lord  or  tenant,  or  the  alienation 
of  the  estate,  to  a  fine  apportioned  to  the  improved 
value  of  the  land.  But  of  all  institutions  which  are 
in  this  way  adverse  to  cultivation  and  improvement, 
none  is  so  noxious  as  that  of  tithes.  A  claimant  here 
enters  into  the  produce,  who  contributed  no  assistance 
whatever  to  the  production.  When  years  perhaps,  of 
care  and  toil  have  matured  an  improvement;  when 
the  husbandman  sees  new  crops  ripening  to  his  skill 


232      WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS. 

and  industry;  the  moment  he  is  ready  to  put  his  sickle 
to  the  grain,  he  finds  himself  compelled  to  divide  his 
harvest  with  a  stranger.  Tithes  are  a  tax  not  only 
upon  industry,  but  upon  that  industry  which  feeds 
mankind;  upon  that  species  of  exertion  which  it  is  the 
aim  of  all  wise  laws  to  cherish  and  promote;  and  to 
uphold  and  excite  which,  composes,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  main  benefit  that  the  community  receives  from  the 
whole  system  of  trade,  and  the  success  of  commerce. 
And,  together  with  the  more  general  inconveniency 
that  attends  the  exaction  of  tithes,  there  is  this  addi- 
tional evil,  in  the  mode  at  least  according  to  which 
they  are  collected  at  present,  that  they  operate  as  a 
bounty  upon  pasturage.  The  burden  of  the  tax  falls 
with  its  chief,  if  not  with  its  whole  weight,  upon  til- 
lage; that  is  to  say,  upon  that  precise  mode  of  culti- 
vation which,  as  hath  been  shown  above,  it  is  the 
business  of  the  state  to  relieve  and  remunerate,  in 
preference  to  every  other.  No  measure  of  such  exten- 
sive concern  appears  to  me  so  practicable,  nor  any 
single  alteration  so  beneficial,  as  the  conversion  of 
tithes  into  corn-rents.  This  commutation,  I  am  con- 
vinced, might  be  so  adjusted,  as  to  secure  the  tithe- 
holder  a  complete  and  perpetual  equivalent  for  hia 
interest,  and  to  leave  to  industry  its  full  operation, 
and  entire  reward. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

OF  WAR,  AND  OF  MILITARY   ESTABLISHMENTS. 

BECAUSE  the  Christian  Scriptures  describe  wars  as 
what  they  are — as  crimes  or  judgments,  some  have 
been  led  to  believe  that  it  is  unlawful  for  a  Christian 
to  bear  arms.  But  it  should  be  remembered,  that  it 
may  be  necessary  for  individuals  to  unite  their  force, 
and  for  this  end  to  resign  themselves  to  the  direction 
of  a  common  will;  and  yet  it  may  be  true,  that  that 
will  is  often  actuated  by  criminal  motives,  and  often 


WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS.      233 

determined  to  destructive  purposes.  Hence,  although 
the  origin  of  wars  be  ascribed,  in  Scripture,  to  the 
operation  of  lawless  and  malignant  passions;*  and 
though  war  itself  be  enumerated  among  the  sorest 
calamities  with  which  a  land  can  be  visited,  the  pro- 
fession of  a  soldier  is  no  where  forbidden  or  con- 
demned. When  the  soldiers  demanded  of  John  the 
Baptist  what  they  should  do,  he  said  unto  them,  "  Do 
violence  to  no  man,  neither  accuse  any  falsely,  and 
be  content  with  your  wages. "f  In  which  answer  we 
do  not  find  that,  in  order  to  prepare  themselves  for 
the  reception  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  it  was  required 
of  soldiers  to  relinquish  their  profession,  but  only  that 
they  should  be  aware  of  the  vices  of  which  that  pro- 
fession was  accused.  The  precept  which  follows, 
"  Be  content  with  your  wages,"  supposed  them  to 
continue  in  their  situation.  It  was  of  a  Roman  centu- 
rion that  Christ  pronounced  that  memorable  eulogy, 
"  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel.":}: 
The  first  Gentile  convert§  who  was  received  into  the 
Christian  church,  and  to  whom  the  Gospel  was  im- 
parted by  the  immediate  and  especial  direction  of 
Heaven,  held  the  same  station;  and  in  the  history  of 
this  transaction  we  discover  not  the  smallest  intima- 
tion, that  Cornelius,  upon  becoming  a  Christian, 
quitted  the  service  of  the  Roman  legion;  that  his 
profession  was  objected  to,  or  his  continuance  in  it 
considered  as  in  any  wise  inconsistent  with  his  new 
character. 

In  applying  the  principles  of  morality  to  the  affairs 
of  nations,  the  difficulty  which  meets  us  arises  from 
hence,  '*  that  the  particular  consequence  sometimes 
appears  to  exceed  the  value  of  the  general  rule."  In 
this  circumstance  is  founded  the  only  distinction  that 
exists  between  the  case  of  independent  states,  and  of 
independent  individuals.  In  the  transactions  of  pri- 
vate persons,  no  advantage  that  results  from  the 
breach  of  a  general  law  of  justice  can  compensate  to 
the  public  for  the  violation  of  the  law;  in  the  concerns 
of  empire,  this  may  sometimes  be  doubted.  Thus, 


*  James,  iv.  1.  f  Luke,  iii.  14.  "j:  Luke,  vii.  9.  §  Acts,  x  1. 
IT  f-t     i  *  on  # 


VOL    ii.  20  * 


234      WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS. 

that  the  faith  of  promises  ought  to  be  maintained,  as 
far  as  is  lawful,  and  as  far  as  was  intended  by  the  par- 
ties, whatever  inconveniency  either  of  them  may  suf- 
fer by  his  fidelity,  in  the  intercourse  of  private  life,  '& 
seldom  disputed;  because  it  is  evident  to  almost  every 
man  who  reflects  upon  the  subject,  that  the  common 
happiness  gains  more  by  the  preservation  of  the  rule 
than  it  could  do  by  removal  of  the  inconveniency. 
But  when  the  adherence  to  a  public  treaty  would  en- 
slave a  whole  people;  would  block  up  seas,  rivers,  or 
harbours;  depopulate  cities;  condemn  fertile  regions 
to  eternal  desolation;  cut  off  a  country  from  its 
sources  of  provision,  or  deprive  it  of  those  commercial 
advantages  to  which  its  climate,  produce,  or  situation, 
naturally  entitle  it:  the  magnitude  of  the  particular 
evil  induces  us  to  call  in  question  the  obligation  of  the 
general  rule.  Moral  philosophy  furnishes  no  precise 
solution  to  these  doubts.  She  cannot  pronounce  that 
any  rule  of  morality  is  so  rigid  as  to  bend  to  no  excep- 
tions; nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  she  comprise  these 
exceptions  within  any  previous  description.  She  con- 
fesses that  the  obligation  of  every  law  depends  upon 
its  ultimate  utility;  that  this  utility  having  a  finite  and 
determinate  value,  situations  may  be  feigned,  and 
consequently  may  possibly  arise,  in  which  the  general 
tendency  is  outweighed  by  the  enormity  of  the  parti- 
cular mischief:  but  she  recalls  at  the  same  time  to 
the  consideration  of  the  inquirer,  the  almost  inestima- 
ble importance,  as  of  other  general  rules  of  relative 
justice,  so  especially  of  national  and  personal  fidelity; 
the  unseen,  if  not  unbounded,  extent  of  the  mischief 
•which  must  follow  from  the  want  of  it;  the  danger  of 
leaving  it  to  the  sufferer  to  decide  upon  the  compari- 
son of  particular  and  general  consequences;  and  the 
still  greater  danger  of  such  decisions  being  drawn  into 
future  precedents.  If  treaties,  for  instance,  be  no 
longer  binding  than  whilst  they  are  convenient,  or 
until  the  inconveniency  ascend  to  a  certain  point 
(which  point  must  be  fixed  by  the  judgment,  or  rather 
by  the  feelings,  of  the  complaining  party;)  or  if  such 
an  opinion,  after  being  authorized  by  a  few  examples, 
come  at  length  to  prevail;  one  and  almost  the  only 


WAR    AND    MILITARY    ESTABLISHMENTS.       235 

method  of  averting  or  closing  the  calamities  of  war, 
of  either  preventing  or  putting  a  stop  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  mankind,  is  lost  to  the  world  for  ever.  We  do 
not  say  that  no  evil  can  exceed  this,  nor  any  possible 
advantage  compensate  it;  but  we  say  that  a  loss, 
whicfl  affects  a//,  will  scarcely  be  made  up  to  the 
common  stock  of  human  happiness  by  any  benefit  that 
can  be  procured  to  a  single  nation,  which,  however, 
respectable  when  compared  with  any  other  single  na- 
tion, bears  an  inconsiderable  proportion  to  the  whole. 
These,  however,  are  the  principles  upon  which  the 
calculation  is  to  be  formed.  It  is  enough,  in  this  place, 
to  remark  the  cause  which  produces  the  hesitation 
that  we  sometimes  feel,  in  applying  rules  of  personal 
probity  to  the  conduct  of  nations. 

As  between  individuals  it  is  found  impossible  to 
ascertain  every  duty  by  an  immediate  reference  to 
public  utility,  not  only  because  such  reference  is  often- 
times too  remote  for  the  direction  of  private  con- 
sciences, but  because  a  multitude  of  cases  arise  in 
which  it  is  indifferent  to  the  general  interest  by  what 
rule  men  act,  though  it  be  absolutely  necessary  that 
they  act  by  some  constant  and  known  rule  or  other; 
and  as,  for  these  reasons,  certain  positive  constitu- 
tions are  wont  to  be  established  in  every  society, 
which,  when  established,  become  as  obligatory  as  the 
original  principles  of  natural  justice  themselves;  so, 
likewise,  it  is  between  independent  communities. 
Together  with  those  maxims  of  universal  equity  which 
are  common  to  states  and  to  individuals,  and  by  which 
the  rights  and  conduct  of  the  one  as  well  as  the  other 
ought  to  be  adjusted,  when  they  fall  within' the  scope 
and  application  of  such  maxims;  there  exists  also 
amongst  sovereigns  a  system  of  artificial  jurispru- 
dence, under  the  name  of  the  law  of  nations.  In  this 
code  are  found  the  rules  which  determine  the  right 
to  vacant  or  newly  discovered  countries;  those  which 
relate  to  the  protection  of  fugitives,  the  privileges  of 
ambassadors,  the  condition  and  duties  of  neutrality, 
the  immunities  of  neutral  ships,  ports,  and  coasts,  the 
distance  from  shore  to  which  these  immunities  extend, 
the  distinction  between  free  and  contraband  goods, 


236       WAR    AND    MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS. 

and  a  variety  of  subjects  of  the  same  kind.  Concein- 
ing  which  examples,  and  indeed  the  principal  part  of 
what  is  called  the  jus  gentium,  it  may  be  observed, 
that  the  rules  derive  their  moral  force  (by  which  I 
mean  the  regard  that  ought  to  be  paid  to  them  by  the 
consciences  of  sovereigns,)  not  from  their  internal 
reasonableness  or  justice,  for  many  of  them  are  per- 
fectly arbitrary,  nor  yet,  from  the  authority  by  which 
they  were  established,  for  the  greater  part  have  grown 
insensibly  into  usage,  without  any  public  compact, 
formal  acknowledgement,  or  even  known  original;  but 
simply  from  the  fact  of  their  being  established,  ami 
the  general  duty  of  conforming  to  established  rules 
upon  questions,  and  between  parties,  where  nothing 
but  positive  regulations  can  prevent  disputes,  and 
where  disputes  are  followed  by  such  destructive  con- 
sequences. The  first  of  the  instances  which  we  have 
just  now  enumerated  may  be  selected  for  the  illustra- 
tion of  this  remark.  The  nations  of  Europe  consider 
the  sovereignty  of  newly  discovered  countries  as  be- 
longing to  the  prince  or  state  whose  subject  makes  the 
discovery;  and,  in  pursuance  of  this  rule,  it  is  usual 
for  a  navigator,  who  falls  upon  an  unknown  shore,  to 
take  possession  of  it,  in  the  name  of  his  sovereign  at 
home,  by  erecting  his  standard,  or  displaying  his  flag, 
upon  a  desert  coast.  Now  nothing  can  be  more  fan- 
ciful, or  less  substantiated  by  any  considerations  of 
reason  or  justice,  than  the  right  which  such  discovery, 
or  the  transient  occupation  and  idle  ceremony  that 
accompany  it,  confer  upon  the  country  of  the  dis- 
coverer. Nor  can  any  stipulation  be  produced,  by 
which  the  rest  of  the  world  have  bound  themselves  to 
submit  to  this  pretension.  Yet  when  we  reflect  that 
the  claims  to  newly  discovered  countries  can  hardly 
be  settled,  between  the  different  nations  which  fre- 
quent them,  without  some  positive  rule  or  other;  that 
such  claims,  if  left  unsettled,  would  prove  sources  of 
ruinous  and  fatal  contentions;  that  the  rule  already 
proposed,  however  arbitrary,  possesses  one  principal 
quality  of  a  rule, — determination  and  certainty;  above 
all,  that  it  is  acquiesced  in,  and  that  no  one  has  pow- 
er to  substitute  another,  however  he  might  contrive  a 


WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS.        237 

better,  in  its  place:  when  we  reflect  upon  these  pro- 
perties of  the  rule,  or  rather  upon  these  consequences 
of  rejecting  its  authority,  we  are  led  to  ascribe  to  it 
the  virtue  and  obligation  of  a  precept  of  natural  jus- 
tice, because  we  perceive  in  it  that  which  is  the  foun- 
dation of  justice  itself, — public  importance  and  utili- 
ty. And  a  prince  who  should  dispute  this  rule,  for  the 
want  of  regularity  in  its  formation,  or  of  intelligible 
justice  in  its  principle,  and  by  such  disputes  should 
disturb  the  tranquillity  of  nations,  and  at  the  same 
time  lay  the  foundation  of  future  disturbances,  would 
be  little  less  criminal  than  he  who  breaks  the  public 
peace  by  a  violation  of  engagements  to  which  he  had 
himself  consented,  or  by  an  attack  upon  those  nation- 
al rights  which  are  founded  immediately  in  the  law 
of  nature,  and  in  the  first  perceptions  of-  equity. 
The  same  thing  may  be  repeated  of  the  rules  which 
the  law  of  nations  prescribes  in  the  other  instances 
that  were  mentioned,  namely,  that  the  obscurity  of 
their  origin,  or  the  arbitrariness  of  their  principle,  sub- 
tracts nothing  from  the  respect  that  is  due  to  them, 
when  once  established. 


War  may  be  considered  with  a  view  to  its  causes 
and  its  conduct. 

The  justifying  causes  of  war  are  deliberate  inva- 
sions of  right,  and  the  necessity  of  maintaining  such 
a  balance  of  power  amongst  neighbouring  nations,  as 
that  no  single  state,  or  confederacy  of  states,  be  strong 
enough  to  overwhelm  the  rest.  The  objects  of  just 
war  are,  precaution,  defence,  or  reparation.  In  a 
larger  sense,  every  just  war  is  a  defensive  war,  inas- 
much as  every  just  war  supposes  an  injury  perpetrated, 
attempted,  or  feared. 

The  insufficient  causes  or  unjustifiable  motives  of 
war,  are  the  family  alliances,  the  personal  friendships, 
or  the  personal  quarrels  of  princes;  the  internal  dis- 
putes which  are  carried  on  in  otner  nations;  the  jus- 
tice of  other  wars;  the  extension  of  territory  or  of 
trade;  the  misfortunes  or  accidental  weakness  of  a 
neighbouring  or  rival  nation. 


238       WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS. 

There  are  two  lessons  of  rational  and  sober  policy, 
which,  if  it  were  possible  to  inculcate  them  into  the 
councils  of  princes,  would  exclude  many  of  the  motives 
of  war,  and  allay  that  restless  ambition  which  is  con- 
stantly stirring  up  one  part  of  mankind  against  another. 
The  first  of  these  lessons  admonishes  princes  to  "  place 
their  glory  and  their  emulation,  not  in  the  extent  of 
territory,  but  in  raising  the  greatest  quantity  of  hap- 
piness out  of  a  given  territory."  The  enlargement  of 
territory  by  conquest  is  not  only  not  a  just  object  of 
war,  but,  in  the  greater  part  of  the  instances  in  which 
it  is  attempted,  not  even  desirable.  It  is  certainly  not 
desirable  where  it  adds  nothing  to  the  numbers,  the 
enjoyments,  or  the  security,  of  the  conquerors.  What 
commonly  is  gained  to  a  nation,  by  the  annexing  of 
new  dependencies,  or  the  subjugation  of  other  coun- 
tries to  its  dominion,  but  a  wider  frontier  to  defend; 
more  interfering  claims  to  vindicate;  more  quarrels, 
more  enemies,  more  rebellions  to  encounter;  a  greater 
force  to  keep  up  by  sea  and  land;  more  services  to 
provide  for,  and  more  establishments  to  pay  ?  And, 
in  order  to  draw  from  these  acquisitions  something 
that  may  make  up  for  the  charge  of  keeping  them,  a 
revenue  is  to  be  extorted,  or  a  monopoly  to  be  enforc- 
ed and  watched,  at  an  expense  which  costs  half  their 
produce.  Thus  the  provinces  are  oppressed,  in  order 
to  pay  for  being  ill  governed;  and  the  original  state 
is  exhausted  \n  maintaining  a  feeble  authority  over  dis- 
contented subjects.  No  assignable  portion  of  country 
is  benefited  by  the  change;  and  if  the  sovereign  ap- 
pear to  himself  to  be  enriched  or  strengthened,  when 
every  part  of  his  dominion  is  made  poorer  and  weaker 
than  it  was,  it  is  probable  that  he  is  deceived  by  ap- 
pearances. Or  were  it  true  that  the  grandeur  of  the 
prince  is  magnified  by  those  exploits;  the  glory  which 
is  purchased,  and  the  ambition  which  is  gratified,  by 
the  distress  of  one  country  without  adding  to  the  hap- 
piness of  another,  which  at  the  same  time  enslaves  the 
new  and  impoverishes  the  ancient  part  of  the  empire, 
by  whatever  names  it  may  be  known  or  flattered, 
ought  to  be  an  object  of  universal  execration;  and 
oftentimes  not  more  so  to  the  vanquished  than  to  the 


WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS.       239 

very  people  whose   armies  or  whose  treasures  have 
achieved  the  victory. 

There  are,  indeed,  two  cases  in  which  the  extension 
of  territory  may  be  of  real  advantage,  and  to  both 
parties.  The  first  is,  where  an  empire  thereby  reaches 
to  the  natural  boundaries  which  divide  it  from  the 
rest  of  the  world.  Thus  we  account  the  British 
Channel  the  natural  boundary  which  separates  the 
nations  of  England  and  France;  and  if  France  pos- 
sessed any  countries  on  this,  or  England  any  cities  or 
provinces  on  that  side  of  the  sea,  recovery  of  such 
towns  and  districts  to  what  may  be  called  their  natural 
sovereign,  though  it  may  not  be  a  just  reason  for 
commencing  war,  would  be  a  proper  use  to  make  of 
victory.  The  other  case  is,  where  neighbouring 
states,  being  severally  too  small  and  weak>  to  defend 
themselves  against  the  dangers  that  surround  them, 
can  only  be  safe  by  a  strict  and  constant  junction  of 
their  strength:  here  conquest  will  effect  the  purposes 
of  confederation  and  alliance;  and  the  union  which  it 
produces  is  often  more  close  and  permanent  than  that 
which  results  from  voluntary  association.  Thus,  if 
the  heptarchy  had  continued  in  England,  the  different 
kingdoms  of  it  might  have  separately  fallen  a  prey  to 
foreign  invasion:  and  although  the  interest  and  dan- 
ger of  one  part  of  the  island  were  in  truth  common  to 
every  other  part,  it  might  have  been  difficult  to  have 
circulated  this  persuasion  amongst  independent  na- 
tions; or  to  have  united  them  in  any  regular  or  steady 
opposition  to  their  continental  enemies,  had  not  the 
valour  and  fortune  of  an  enterprising  prince  incorpo- 
rated the  whole  into  a  single  monarchy.  Here  the 
conquered  gained  as  much  by  the  revolution  as  the 
conquerors.  In  like  manner,  and  for  the  same  rea- 
son, when  the  two  royal  families  of  Spain  were  met 
together  in  one  race  of  princes,  and  the  several  pro- 
vinces of  France  had  devolved  into  the  possession  of 
a  single  sovereign,  it  became  unsafe  for  the  inhabitants 
of  Great  Britain  any  longer  to  remain  under  separate 
governments.  The  union  of  England  and  Scotland, 
which  transformed  two  quarrelsome  neighbours  into 
one  powerful  empire,  and  which  was  first  brought 


240        WAR  AND    MILITARY   ESTABLISHMENTS. 

about  by  the  course  of  succession,  and  afterwards 
completed  by  amicable  convention,  would  have  been 
a  fortunate  conclusion  of  hostilities,  had  it  been  ef- 
fected by  the  operations  of  war.  These  two  cases 
being  admitted,  namely,  the  obtaining  of  natural 
boundaries  and  barriers,  and  the  including  under  the 
same  government  those  who  have  a  common  danger 
and  a  common  enemy  to  guard  against;  I  know  not 
whether  a  third  can  be  thought  of,  in  which  the  ex- 
tension of  empire  by  conquest  is  useful  even  to  the 
conquerors. 

The  second  rule  of  prudence  which  ought  to  be 
recommended  to  those  who  conduct  the  affairs  of  na- 
tions is  "  never  to  pursue  national  honour  as  distinct 
from  national  interest."  This  rule  acknowledges  that 
it  is  often  necessary  to  assert  the  honour  of  a  nation 
for  the  sake  of  its  interest.  The  spirit  and  courage 
of  a  people  are  supported  by  flattering  their  pride. 
Concessions  which  betray  too  much  of  fear  or  weak- 
ness, though  they  relate  to  points  of  mere  ceremony, 
invite  demands  and  attacks  of  more  serious  import- 
ance. Our  rule  allows  all  this;  and  only  directs  that, 
when  points  of  honour  become  subjects  of  contention 
between  sovereigns,  or  are  likely  to  be  made  the  oc- 
casions of  war,  they  be  estimated  with  a  reference  to 
utility,  and  not  by  themselves.  "  The  dignity  of  his 
crown,  the  honour  of  his  flag,  the  glory  of  his  arms," 
in  the  mouth  of  a  prince,  are  stately  and  imposing 
terms;  but  the  ideas  they  inspire  are  insatiable.  It 
may  be  always  glorious  to  conquer,  whatever  be  the 
justice  of  the  war,  or  the  price  of  the  victory.  The 
dignity  of  a  sovereign  may  not  permit  him  to  recede 
from  churns  of  homage  and  respect,  at  whatever  ex- 
pense of  national  peace  and  happiness  they  are  to  be 
maintained;  however  unjust  they  may  have  been  in 
their  original,  or  in  their  continuance  however  use- 
less to  the  possessor,  or  mortifying  and  vexatious  to 
othei  states.  The  pursuit  of  honour,  when  set  loose 
from  the  admonitions  of  prudence,  becomes  in  kings 
a  wild  and  romantic  passion:  eager  to  engage,  and 
gathering  fury  in  its  progress,  it  is  checked  by  no  dif- 
ficulties, repellod  by  no  dangers;  it  forgets  or  despises 


WAR    AND  MILITARY    ESTABLISHMENTS.       241 

those  considerations  of  safety,  ease,  wealth,  and 
plenty,  which,  in  the  eye  of  true  public  wisdom,  com- 
pose the  objects,  to  which  the  renown  of  arms,  the 
fame  of  victory,  are  only  instrumental  and  subordi- 
nate. The  pursuit  of  interest,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
a  sober  principle;  computes  costs  and  consequences; 
is  cautious  of  entering  into  war;  stops  in  time:  when 
regulated  by  those  universal  maxims  of  relative  jus- 
tice which  belong  to  the  affairs  of  communities  as 
well  as  of  private  persons,  it  is  the  right  principle  for 
nations  to  proceed  by;  even  when  it  trespasses  upon 
these  regulations,  it  is  much  less  dangerous,  because 
much  more  temperate  than  the  other. 

2.  The  conduct  of  war. — If  the  cause  and  end 
of  war  be  justifiable,  all  the  means  that  appear  ne- 
cessary to  the  end  are  justifiable  also.  This  is  the 
principle  which  defends  those  extremities  to  which 
the  violence  of  war  usually  proceeds;  for  since  war 
is  a  contest  by  force  between  parties  who  acknow- 
ledge no  common  superior,  and  since  it  includes  not 
in  its  idea  the  supposition  of  any  convention  which 
should  place  limits  to  the  operation  of  force,  it  has 
naturally  no  boundary  but  that  in  which  force  termi- 
nates,— the  destruction  of  the  life  against  which  the 
force  is  directed.  Let  it  be  observed,  however,  that 
the  licence  of  war  authorizes  no  acts  of  hostility  but 
what  are  necessary  or  conducive  to  the  end  and  object 
of  the  war.  Gratuitous  barbarities  borrow  no  excuse 
from  this  plea*,  of  which  kind  is  every  cruelty  and 
every  insult  that  serves  only  to  exasperate  the  suffer- 
ings or  to  incense  the  hatred  of  an  enemy,  without 
weakening  his  strength,  or  in  any  manner  tending  to 
procure  his  submission,  such  as  the  slaughter  of  cap- 
tives, the  subjecting  of  them  to  indignities  or  torture, 
the  violation  of  women,  the  profanation  of  temples, 
the  demolition  of  public  buildings,  libraries,  statues, 
and  in  general  the  destruction  or  defacing  of  works 
that  conduce  nothing  to  annoyance  or  defence.  These 
enormities  are  prohibited  not  only  by  the  practice  of 
civilized  nations,  but  by  the  law  of  nature  itself;  aa 
having  no  proper  tendency  to  accelerate  the  termi- 
aation,  or  accomplish  the  object  of  the  war:  and  a§ 

YOL.  II.  21 


242       WAR    AND    MILITARY    ESTABLISHMENTS. 

containing  that  which  in  peace  and  war  is  equally 
unjustifiable, — ultimate  and  gratuitous  mischief. 

There  are  other  restrictions  imposed  upon  the  con- 
duct of  war,  not  by  the  law  of  nature  primarily,  but 
by  the  laws  of  war  first,  and  by  the  law  of  nature  as 
seconding  and  ratifying  the  laws  of  war.  The  laws 
of  war  are  part  of  the  law  of  nations;  and  founded, 
as  to  their  authority,  upon  the  same  principle  with 
the  rest  of  that  code,  namely,  upon  the  fact  of  their 
being  established,  no  matter  when  or  by  whom;  upon 
the  expectation  of  their  being  mutually  observed,  in 
consequence  of  that  establishment  ;  and  upon  the 
general  utility  which  results  from  such  observance. 
The  binding  force  of  these  rules  is  the  greater,  be- 
cause the  regard  that  is  paid  to  them  must  be  universal 
or  none.  The  breach  of  the  rule  can  only  be  pun- 
ished by  the  subversion  of  the  rule  itself:  on  which 
account,  the  whole  mischief  that  ensues  from  the  loss 
of  those  salutary  restrictions  which  such  rules  pre- 
scribe is  justly  chargeable  upon  the  first  aggressor. 
To  this  consideration  may  be  referred  the  duty  of 
refraining  in  war  from  poison  and  from  assassination. 
If  the  law  of  nature  simply  be  consulted,  it  may  be 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  these  and  other  me- 
thods of  destruction  which  are  practised  without  scru- 
ple by  nations  at  war.  If  it  be  lawful  to  kill  an 
enemy  at  all,  it  seems  lawful  to  do  so  by  one  mode 
of  death  as  well  as  by  another;  by  a  dose  of  poison, 
as  by  the  point  of  a  sword;  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin, 
as  by  the  attack  of  an  army:  for  if  it  be  said  that 
one  species  of  assault  leaves  to  an  enemy  the  power 
of  defending  himself  against  it,  and  that  the  other 
does  not;  it  may  be  answered,  that  we  possess  at  least 
the  same  right  to  cut  ofi  an  enemy's  defence,  that  we 
have  to  seek  his  destruction.  In  this  manner  might 
the  question  be  debated,  if  there  existed  no  rule  or  law 
of  war  upon  the  subject.  But  when  we  observe  that 
such  practices  are  at  present  excluded  by  the  usage 
and  opinions  of  civilized  nations;  that  the  first  re- 
course to  them  would  be  followed  by  irstant  retalia- 
tion; that  the  mutual  licence  which  such  attempts 
must  introduce  would  fill  both  sides  with  the  misery 


WAR   AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS.       243 

of  continual  dread  and  suspicion,  without  adding  to 
the  strength  or  success  of  either;  that  when  the  ex- 
ample came  to  be  more  generally  imitated,  which  it 
soon  would  be,  after  the  sentiment  that  condemns  it 
had  been  once  broken  in  upon,  it  would  greatly 
aggravate  the  horrors  and  calamities  of  war,  yet  pro- 
cure no  superiority  to  any  of  the  nations  engaged  in 
it; — when  we  view  these  effects,  we  join  in  the  public 
reprobation  of  such  fatal  expedients,  as  of  the  admis- 
sion amongst  mankind  of  new  and  enormous  evils 
without  necessity  or  advantage.  The  law  of  nature, 
we  see  at  length,  forbids  these  innovations,  as  so 
many  transgressions  of  a  beneficial  general  rule  actu- 
ally subsisting. 

The  licence  of  war  then  acknowledges  two  limita- 
tions: it  authorizes  no  hostilities,  which  have  not.  an 
apparent  tendency  to  effectuate  the  object  of  the  war; 
it  respects  those  positive  laws  which  the  custom  of 
nations  hath  sanctified,  and  which,  whilst  they  are 
mutually  conformed  to,  mitigate  the  calamities  of 
war,  without  weakening  its  operations,  or  diminishing 
the  power  or  safety  of  belligerent  states. 


Long  and  various  experience  seems  to  have  con- 
vinced the  nations  of  Europe,  that  nothing  but  a 
standing  army  can  oppose  a  standing  army,  where 
the  numbers  on  each  side  bear  any  moderate  propor- 
tion to  one  another.  The  first  standing  army  that 
appeared  in  Europe  after  the  fall  of  the  Roman  legion, 
was  that  which  was  erected  in  France  by  Charles  VII. 
about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century:  and  that 
the  institution  hath  since  become  general,  can  only 
be  attributed  to  the  superiority  and  success  which 
are  everywhere  observed  to  attend  it.  The  truth 
is,  the  closeness,  regularity,  and  quickness  of  their 
movements;  the  unreserved,  instantaneous,  and  almost 
mechanical  obedience  to  orders;  the  sense  of  personal 
honour,  and  the  familiarity  with  dvinger,  which  belong 
to  a  disciplined,  veteran,  and  embodied  soldiery,  give 
such  nrmness  and  intrepidity  to  their  approach,  such 
weight  and  execution  to  their  attack,  as  are  not  to  be 


244       WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS. 

withstood  by  loose  ranks  of  occasional  and  newly 
levied  troops,  who  are  liable  by  their  inexperience  to 
disorder  and  confusion,  and  in  whom  fear  is  constantly 
augmented  by  novelty  and  surprise.  It  is  possible 
that  a  militia,  with  a  great  excess  of  numbers,  and  a 
ready  supply  of  recruits,  may  sustain  a  defensive  or 
a  flying  war  against  regular  troops:  it  is  also  true 
that  any  service,  which  keeps  soldiers  for  a  while 
together,  and  inures  them  by  little  and  little  to  the 
habits  of  war  and  the  danger  of  action,  transforms 
them  in  effect  into  a  standing  army.  But  upon  this 
plan  it  may  be  necessary  for  almost  a  whole  nation 
to  go  out  to  war  to  repel  an  invader;  beside  that  a 
people  so  unprepared  must  always  have  the  seat,  and 
with  it  the  miseries  of  war,  at  home,  being  utterly 
incapable  of  carrying  their  operations  into  foreign 
country. 

From  the  acknowledged  superiority  of  standing 
armies,  it  follows,  not  only  that  it  is  unsafe  for  a  na- 
tion to  disband  its  regular  troops,  whilst  neighbouring 
kingdoms  retain  theirs,  but  also  that  regular  troops 
provide  for  the  public  service  at  the  least  possible 
expense.  I  suppose  a  certain  quantity  of  military 
strength  to  be  necessary,  and  I  say,  that  a  standing 
army  costs  the  community  less  than  any  other  esta- 
blishment which  presents  to  an  enemy  the  same  force. 
The  constant  drudgery  of  low  employments  is  not 
only  incompatible  with  any  great  degree  of  perfection 
or  expertness  in  the  profession  of  a  soldier,  but  the 
profession  of  a  soldier  almost  always  unfits  men  for 
the  business  of  regular  occupations.  Of  three  inha- 
bitants of  a  village,  it  is  better  that  one  should  addict 
himself  entirely  to  arms,  and  the  other  two  stay  con- 
stantly at  home  to  cultivate  the  ground,  than  that  all 
the  three  should  mix  the  avocations  of  a  camp  with 
the  business  of  husbandry.  By  the  former  arrange - 
ment,  the  country  gains  one  complete  soldier  and 
two  industrious  husbandmen;  from  the  latter,  it  re- 
ceives three  raw  militiamen,  who  are  at  the  same 
time  three  idle  and  profligate  peasants.  It  should  be 
considered  also,  that  the  emergencies  of  war  wait  not 
for  seasons.  Where  there  is  no  standing  army  ready 


WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS.      245 

for  immediate  service,  it  may  be  necessary  to  call  the 
reaper  from  the  fields  in  harvest,  or  the  ploughman  in 
seed-time;  and  the  provision  of  a  whole  year  may 
perish  by  the  interruption  of  one  month's  labour.  A 
standing  army,  therefore,  is  not  only  a  more  effectual 
but  a  cheaper  method  of  providing  for  the  public 
safety  than  any  other,  because  it  adds  more  than  any 
other  to  the  common  strength,  and  takes  less  from 
that  which  composes  the  wealth  of  a  nation, — its 
stock  of  productive  industry. 

There  is  yet  another  distinction  between  standing 
armies  and  militias,  which  deserves  a  more  attentive 
consideration  than  any  that  has  been  mentioned. 
When  the  state  relies,  for  its  defence,  upon  a  militia, 
it  is  necessary  that  arms  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
people  at  large.  The  militia  itself  must  be  numerous, 
in  proportion  to  the  want  or  inferiority  of  its  discipline, 
and  the  imbecilities  or  defects  of  its  constitution. 
Moreover,  as  such  a  militia  must  be  supplied  by  rota- 
tion, allotment,  or  some  mode  of  succession,  whereby 
they  who  have  served  a  certain  time  are  replaced  by 
fresh  draughts  from  the  country,  a  much  greater 
number  will  be  instructed  in  the  use  of  arms,  and 
will  have  been  occasionally  embodied  together,  than 
are  actually  employed,  or  than  are  supposed  to  be 
wanted  at  the  same  time.  Now  what  effects,  upon 
the  civil  condition  of  the  country,  may  be  looked  for 
from  this  general  diffusion  of  the  military  character, 
becomes  an  inquiry  of  great  importance  and  delicacy. 
To  me  it  appears  doubtful  whether  any  government 
can  be  long  tecure,  where  the  people  are  acquainted 
with  the  use  of  arms,  and  accustomed  to  resort  to 
them.  Every  faction  will  find  itself  at  the  head  of 
an  army;  every  disgust  will  excite  commotion,  and 
every  commotion  become  a  civil  war.  Nothing,  per- 
haps can  govern  a  nation  of  armed  citizens  but  that 
which  governs  an  army — despotism.  I  do  not  mean 
that  a  regular  government  would  become  despotic  by 
training  up  its  subjects  to  the  knowledge  and  exercise 
of  arms,  but  that  it  would  ere  long  be  forced  to  give 
way  to  despotism  in  some  other  shape;  and  that  the 
country  would  be  liable  to  what  is  even  worse  than  a 

TOL.  II.  21  * 


246      WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENT*. 

settled  and  constitutional  despotism, — to  perpetual 
rebellions,  and  to  perpetual  revolutions;  to  short  and 
violent  usurpations,  to  the  successive  tyranny  of  gov- 
ernors, rendered  cruel  and  jealous  by  the  danger  and 
instability  of  their  situation. 

The  same  purposes  of  strength  and  efficacy  which 
make  a  standing  army  necessary  at  all,  make  it  neces- 
sary, in  mixed  governments,  that  this  army  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  management  and  direction  of  the  prince: 
for,  however  well  a  popular  council  may  be  qualified 
for  the  offices  of  legislation,  it  is  altogether  unfit  for 
the  conduct  of  war;  in  which  success  usually  depends 
upon  vigour  and  enterprise;  upon  secrecy,  despatch, 
and  unanimity;  upon  a  quick  perception  of  opportu- 
nities, and  the  power  of  seizing  every  opportunity 
immediately.  It  is  likewise  necessary  that  the  obe- 
dience of  an  army  be  as  prompt  and  active  as  possible; 
for  which  reason  it  ought  to  be  made  an  obedience 
of  will  and  emulation.  Upon  this  consideration  is 
founded  the  expediency  of  leaving  to  the  prince  not 
only  the  government  and  destination  of  the  army,  but 
the  appointment  and  promotion  of  its  officers:  be- 
cause a  design  is  then  alone  likely  to  be  executed 
with  zeal  and  fidelity,  when  the  person  who  issues  the 
order  chooses  the  instruments  and  rewards  the  ser- 
vice. To  which  we  may  subjoin,  that  in  governments 
like  ours,  if  the  direction  and  officering  of  the  army 
were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  democratic  part  of 
the  constitution,  this  power,  added  to  what  they 
already  possess,  would  so  overbalance  all  that  would 
be  left  of  regal  prerogative,  that  little  would  remain 
of  monarchy  in  the  constitution,  but  the  name  arid 
expense;  nor  would  these  probably  remain  long. 

Whilst  we  describe,  however,  the  advantages  of 
standing  armies,  we  must  not  conceal  the  danger. 
These  properties  of  their  constitution, — the  soldiery 
being  separated  in  a  great  degree  from  the  rest  of 
the  community,  their  being  closely  linked  amongst 
themselves  by  habits  of  society  and  subordination, 
and  the  dependency  of  the  whole  chain  upon  the  will 
and  favour  of  the  prince, — however  essential  they 
may  be  to  the  purposes  for  which  armies  are  kept  up, 


WAR  AND  MILITARY  ESTABLISHMENTS.       247 

give  them  an  aspect  in  no  wise  favourable  to  public 
liberty.  The  danger,  however,  is  diminished  by 
maintaining,  on  all  occasions,  as  much  alliance  of 
interest,  and  as  much  intercourse  of  sentiment,  be- 
tween the  military  part  of  the  nation  and  the  other 
orders  of  the  people,  as  are  consistent  with  the  union 
and  discipline  of  an  army.  For  which  purpose,  offi- 
cers of  the  army,  upon  whose  disposition  towards  the 
commonwealth  a  great  deal  may  depend,  should  be 
taken  from  the  principal  families  of  the  country,  and 
at  the  same  time  also  be  encouraged  to  establish  in 
it  families  of  their  own,  as  well  as  be  admitted  to  seats 
in  the  senate,  to  hereditary  distinctions,  and  to  all  the 
civil  honours  and  privileges  that  are  compatible  with 
their  profession  :  which  circumstances  of  connexion 
and  situation  will  give  them  such  a  share  in  the 
general  rights  of  the  people,  and  so  engage  their  in- 
clinations on  the  side  of  public  liberty,  as  to  afford  a 
reasonable  security  that  they  cannot  be  brought,  by 
any  promises  of  personal  aggrandizement,  to  assist  in 
the  execution  of  measures  which  might  enslave  thcil 
posterity,  their  kindred,  and  their  country. 


FOR 

THE    EXAMINATION     OP     STUDENTS 

IN 

PALEY'S 

MORAL  AND   POLITICAL 


BY  JOHN  FROST, 

PRINCIPAL  OF  THE  MAYHE W  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL,  BOSTOS 


BOSTON: 

BENJAMIN    B.   MUSSEY    &    CO., 

29  CORNHILL. 

1852. 


DISTRICT  OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  to  wit  i 

District  Clerk's  Office. 

BE  IT  REMEMBERED,  That  on  the  seventeenth  day  of  October, 
A.  D.  1828,  in  the  fifty-third  year  of  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  Nathaniel  H.  Whitaker,  of  the  said  district,  has 
deposited  in  this  office  the  title  of  a  book,  the  right  whereof  he  claims 
as  proprietor,  in  the  words  following,  to  wit : 

"  Questions  for  the  Examination  of  Students  in  Paley's  Moral 
and  Political  Philosophy.  By  John  Frost,  Principal  of  the  Mayhew 
Grammar  School,  Boston." 

In  conformity  to  the  act  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  en- 
titled, "  An  Act  for  the  encouragement  of  learning,  by  securing  the 
copies  of  maps,  charts,  and  books,  to  the  authors  and  proprietors  of 
such  copies,  during  the  times  therein  mentioned  j"  and  also  to  an 
act,  entitled,  "  An  Act  supplementary  to  an  act,  entitled,  An  Act 
for  the  encouragement  of  learning,  by  securing  the  copies  of  maps, 
charts,  and  hooks,  to  the  authors  and  proprietors  of  such  copies, 
during  the  times  therein  mentioned  ;  and  extending  the  benefits 
thereof  to  the  arts  of  designing,  engraving  and  etching  historical 
and  other  prints." 

JNO.  W.  DAVIS, 
Clerk  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


FOR  THE  EXAMINATION  OF  STUDENTS  IN 
PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY. 


The  figures  on  the  margin  refer  to  the  pages  of  the  Boston  School  Edition,  on  which  th« 
answers  are  to  be  found. 


BOOK  I.— CHAPTER  I. 

21.  What  is  Moral  Philosophy  ?     What  is  its  use  ? 
What  are  the  ordinary  rules  ot  conduct  among  men  ? 

CHAPTER  II. 

What  is  the  law  of  honour  ? 

22.  What  duties  does  it  regulate  1    What  does  it  omit  ? 
What  crimes  does  it  allow  ? 

CHAPTER  III. 

Why  is  not 'the  law  of  the  land  a  sufficient  rule  of  conduct  ? 

23.  What  class  of  duties  are  left  out  of  the  statute  book  ? 
What  crimes  does  it  allow  ? 

Why  do  not  free  states  allow  the  magistrate  discretionary 
power  ? 

CHAPTER  IV. 

24.  Do  the  Scriptures  furnish  a  specific  rule  of  every  variety 

of  moral  duty  ?     Why  not  ? 
What  kind  of  rules  do  the  Scriptures  furnish? 
How  are  they  illustrated  ? 

25.  How  are  all  practical  sciences  taught  ? 

What  is  the  difference  between  the  Scripture  manner  of 
teaching  moral  science  and  the  usual  mode  of  teaching 
other  sciences  ? 

Do  the  Scriptures  define  crimes  accurately  in  all  cases? 
Why  not  ? 

Do  these  views  imply  any  imperfection  in  the  Scriptures  7 

CHAPTER  V. 

26.  Relate  the  anecdote  of  Caius  Toranius. 

What  is  the  question;  among  moralists,  with  relation  to 
this  story  1 

27.  Which  party  affirm  that  the  uneducated  savage  would  dis- 

approve Toranius's  conduct  ? 


4  QUESTIONS    OJf  [VOI..   I.  B.  I. 

How  is  the  affirmative  supported  ? 

What  is  the  first  argument  on  the  negative  side  ? 

28.  How  is  the  general  approbation  of  good  actions  account- 

ed for  ? 

29.  What  other  passion  continues  in  the  same  mannei  ? 
How  is  the  custom  of  approving  good  actions  transmitted  ? 

30.  What  do  children  most  readily  imitate  ? 
Are  there  any  maxims  universally  true  ? 

31.  Does   not  the   argument  relating  to  instinct  prove  too 

much  ? 

What  is  Paley's  opinion  concerning  the  moral  sense? 
What  absurd  position  did  Aristotle  lay  down  as  a  maxim? 
What  would  be  the  grand  delect  of  a  system  of  morality 

founded  on  instincts  ? 

32.  Is  the  question,  concerning  the  moral  sense  one  of  much 

practical  importance  ? 

CHAPTER  VI. 

How  is  the  word  happy  applied  ? 
What  condition  may  be  called  happy  ? 

33.  How  do  pleasures  differ  ? 

34.  (I.  1st.)  Does  nappiness  consist  in  sensual  indulgence  ? 

Why  not  ? 

What  is  the  common  delusion  attending  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure  ? 

35.  What  is  the  most  common  characteristic  of  the  votaries 

of  pleasure  ? 

36.  (2dl}r.)  Does  happiness  consist  in  exemption  from  labour, 

care,  &c.  ?     Do  retired  men  of  business  find  it  ? 
Do  not  agitation  and  even  pain  sometimes  afford  relief? 
(3dly.)  Does  happiness  consist  in  rank  ?     Why  not  ? 

37.  What  kind  of  superiority  vields  satisfaction  ?     Illustrate 

this. 

Are  the  pleasures  of  ambition  common  to  all  conditions  ? 
Why? 

38.  How  aoes  Paley  prove  that  happiness  does  not  consist  in 

Etness  ? 
the  conduct  of  life,  what  should  we  know  "  before- 
I  ?" 

39.  Will  any  particular  plan  of  life  answer  for  all  ? 

(1.)  What  is  the  first  requisite  for  happiness  enumerated  ? 
What  persons  usually  jx)ssess  the  best  spirits  ? 
Is  benevolence  productive  of  happiness  1  [ness  ? 

(2.)  Is  the  exercise  of  the  faculties  productive  of  nappi- 
How  does  it  appear  that  the  exercise  of  hope  is  an  im- 
portant requisite  for  happiness  ? 

40.  What  makes  the  rich  resort  to  gaming,  &c.  ? 
Distinguish  the  two  kinds  of  hope. 

Which  is  conducive  to  happiness  ? 


VOL.  i.  B.  ii.]  PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  5 

What  pleasures  are  most  valuable  ? 
What  man  has  the  greatest  advantage  in  this  respect  ? 
41     What  sort  of  engagement  or  occupation  is  to  be  preferred  ? 
(3.)  Does  happiness  depend  on  the  prudent  constitution 

of  the  habits  ? 

What  is  the  great  art  in  which  the  secret  of  human  happi- 
ness consists  ? 

42.  What  advantage  has  the  peasant  over  the  epicure  ?    The 

labourer  over  the  card-player  ? 
Which  enjoys  Sunday  most  ? 
What  advantage  has  the  man  of  retired  habits  over  the 

man  of  the  world  ? 
What  advantage  has  the  reader  of  scientific  books  over 

the  novel  reader  ? 

43.  How  is  happiness  affected  by  circumstances  of  fortune  ? 
Which  conduces  most  to  happiness,  the  spending  or  the 

acquiring  of  property  ? 

(4.)  Is  heal  in  important  to  happiness  ?  [health  ? 

By  what  sacrifices  should  we  be  willing  to  purchase 

44.  What  conclusions  are  drawn  from  this  account  of  human 

happiness  ? 

CHAPTER  VII. 

What  is  virtue  ? 

What  are  the  subject,  rule,  and  motive,  of  human  virtue  ? 
How  is  it  divided  ? 

45.  What  two  branches  is  it  divided  into  ? 
What  are  the  four  cardinal  virtues  ? 
What  is  the  modern  division  of  virtue  ? 

( 1 .)  What  is  the  common  spring  of  action  ? 

46.  Where  is  the  exercise  of  virtue,  the  guilt  of  vice,  or  any 

use  of  moral  and  religious  knowledge  ? 
Are  any  actions  to  be  performed  solely  for  the  sake  of 
habit?     Illustrate  this. 

48.  (2.)  Has  the  Christian  religion  ascertained  the  precise 

quantity  of  virtue  necessary  to  salvation  ? 
Is  this  any  objection  to  it  ?     Why  not  1 

49.  (1 .)  What  description  of  persons  may  not  expect  a  future 

state  of  happiness  ? 
(2.)  Is  a  state  of  happiness  to  be  expected  by  those  who 

indulge  any  one  sin  habitually  ?    Why  not? 
60.    (3  )  Will  unprofitableness  be  punished  ?    How  does  this 

appear  ? 
51.   (4.)  Jn  questions  of  conduct,  which  side  should  we  take 

Give  an  instance. 

BOOK  II.— CHAPTER  I. 

62.   Why  am  I  obliged  to  keep  my  word  ? 
How  do  these  reasons  coincide  ? 

1  * 


6  QUESTIONS    ON  [v.  I.,  B.  II. 

53.  How  are  they  deficient  ? 

How  should  the  inquiry  be  conducted  ? 

CHAPTER  II. 

When  is  a  man  obliged  ? 

Illustrate  the  necessity  of  the  motive  being  a  violent  one. 

54.  Why  must  the  motive  result  from  the  command  of  an- 

other ? 
What  follows  from  this  account  of  obligation  T 

CHAPTER  III. 

How  are  we  obliged  to  keep  our  word  ? 

55.  What  are  our  motive  and  rule  for  moral  conduct  ? 
Does  moral  obligation  resemble  other  obligations  ? 
Illustrate  the  difference  between  an  act  of  prudence  and 

an  act  of  duty. 

In  what  does  this  difference  consist  ? 

jfi.    What  are  the  two  great  questions  that  principally  con- 
cern us  as  moral  agents  ? 
Which  is  to  be  discussed  in  the  present  work  ? 

CHAPTER  IV. 

What  are  the  two  methods  of  ascertaining  the  will  of 

God? 
.57     Should  these  be  separated  ?    Illustrate  this. 

Are  the  sanctions  of  religion  necessary  to  a  perfect  sys- 
tem of  morals? 

CHAPTER  V. 

53.    How  might  the  Deity  have  insured  our  misery,  if  he  had 

desired  it  ? 

What  is  the  consequence  of  supposing  the  Deity  indiffer- 
ent to  our  happiness  ? 
59.    If  our  happiness  be  not  the  result  of  accident,  what  is  the 

necessary  inference  ? 

What  appears  to  have  been  the  design  of  the  Deity  in 

the  contrivance  of  the  human  frame  ?     Illustrate  this. 

Is  evil  the  natural  result  of  the  contrivance  of  the  human 

frame  ? 

GO.   Which  affords  the  more  convincing  proof  of  the  benevo- 
lence of  the  Deity,  the  contemplation  of  universal  na- 
ture, or  of  some  single  example  ? 
What  was  Paley's  favourite  example  ? 
What  is  the  rule  resulting  from  tne  fact,  that  God  wills 
and  wishes  the  happiness  of  his  creatures  ? 

CHAPTER  VI. 

61.    How  are  actions  to  be  estimated  ? 

What  constitutes  the  obligation  of  a  moral  ru!e  T 


v,  i.,  B.  ii.]     PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  T 

State  the  objection. 

62.  How  is  it  refuted  ? 

How  are  the  bad  consequences  of  actions  divided  1 
What  are  the  particular  consequences  ?    The  general  t 

Illustrate  this. 
Why,  therefore,  is  a  single  unlawful  act  not  useful  ? 

CHAPTER  VII. 

63.  Why  are  general  rules  necessary  ?     Illustrate  this. 

Are  these  general  rules  equally  necessary  in  the  Divine 
government  ?    Illustrate  their  necessity. 

64.  Why  has  secrecy  been  supposed,  in  any  measure,  to  jus- 

tify a  wrong  action  ?     Why  does  it  not  ? 
What  three  points  are  proposed  to  the  supporters  of  this 
doctrine  ? 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

65.  How  may  the  general  consequences  of  any  action  be  esti- 

mated ? 

In  how  wide  a  sense  must  the  expediency  of  actions  be 
considered  ? 

66.  Illustrate  the  difference  between  the  particular  and  the 

general  consequences  of  actions  by  the  examples  of 
counterfeiting,  forgery,  sheep-stealing,  house-breaking, 
smuggling",  breaking  parole. 

67.  Why  are  crimes  the  same,  whose  particular  consequences 

are  widely  different? 

Were  the  ancients  aware  of  this  distinction? 
What  did  they  mean  by  the  term  Jwnestum  ? 

CHAPTER  IX. 

68.  How  are  right  and  obligation  related  ? 

Upon  what  do  moral  obligation  arid  right  depend  ? 

69.  Describe  right  as  a  quality  of  persons.    Of  actions. 

CHAPTER  X. 

How  are  the  rights  of  persons  divided  ? 

70.  (1.)  Define  natural  ngnts.    Adventitious. 
Enumerate  some  of  the  former.    The  latter. 
How  are  adventitious  rights  created  ? 

71.  (2.)  Give  an  example  of  an  alienable  right.    An  unalieu- 

able  right. 

Is  the  right  *.o  civil  liberty  alienable  according  to  Paley  t 
(3.)  What  are  perfect  rights  ?     Imperfect  ? 
Give  examples  of  perfect  rights. 

72.  Of  imperfect  rights. 

Why  may  not  all  our  rights  be  enforced  ?    Illustrate  thi« 
bv  the  example  of  the  worthy  candidate  for  office. 

73.  By  the  example  of  the  poor  man. 


8  QUESTIONS    ON  [V.  I.,  B.  III. 

Is  an  obligation  as  imperfect  as  the  corresponding  right  ? 
Is  it,  therefore,  less  criminal  to  violate  it  ?     Illustrate  this 
by  the  example  of  the  corrupt  voter. 

74.  What  kinds  of  obligation  are  generally  created  by  posi- 

tive precepts  ?    By  negative  ones  ? 

CHAPTER  XI. 

What  are  general  rights  ? 
(1.)  Give  an  example. 
On  what  is  it  founded  ? 

75.  (2.)  Give  another  example. 

What  reasons  are  alleged  in  vindication  of  this  practice  ? 
Why  are  these  reasons  unsound  ? 
What  is  the  real  ground  of  the  right  ? 

76.  When  was  this  permission  granted  ? 

Why  is  wastefulness  wrong  ?     Give  an  example. 

77.  What   should  not  be  made  exclusive  property?    How 

does  this  appear  ] 

78.  How  should  a  medicinal  spring  be  disposed  of? 

Is  the  right  to  an  inexhaustible  fishery  common  to  all  na- 
tions ? 

How  much  of  the  sea  has  any  nation  an  exclusive  right 

to? 
79    Give  another  example  of  a  general  right. 

How  is  the  amount  of  restitution,  in  cases  of  destruction 
by  extreme  necessity,  to  be  determined  ? 

BOOK  HI.— PART  I.— CHAPTER  I. 

80.  Illustrate  the  institution  of  property. 

CHAPTER  II. 

81.  (1.)  How  does  the  institution  of  property  increase  the 

produce  of  the  earth  ? 

Give  an  example  of  a  population  subsisting  without  prop- 
erty in  land. 

82.  (2.)  What  would  be  the  effect  of  a  community  of  right  to 

the  fruits  of  the  earth,  in  respect  to  their  being  allowed 

to  ripen  ? 

(3.)  Does  the  institution  of  property  prevent  contests  ? 
(4.)  Does  it  improve  the  conveniency  of  living  ?     How  7 

How  does  it  encourage  the  arts  ? 

83.  Is  the  institution  of  property,  on  the  whole,  beneficial  ? 

CHAPTER  III. 

What  were  the  first  objects  of  property  ?    The  next  ? 
What  people  have  advanced  no  farther  than  this  ? 
What  were  subsequently  important  objects  of  property  T 

84.  Give  the  history  of  landed  property. 
In  immoveables. 


v.  I.,  B.  in.]      PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  9 

CHAPTER  IV. 

G5,   What  difficulty  occurs  in  explaining  the  origin  of  proper- 
ty in  land  ? 

How  is  it  said  to  have  originated  in  tacit  consent  ? 
What  is  the  objection  to  this  ? 
How  is  it  said  that  labouring  on  land  created  ownership  ? 

86.  To  what  kinds  of  property  does  this  apply  ? 

What  is  Paley's  account  of  the  first  right  of  ownership  ? 

87.  How  far  does  this  reason  justify  property  ?    Illustrate  this. 
What  is  necessary  to  make   the   right  of  property,  ac- 
quired by  the  above-mentioned  means,  valid  ? 

What  is  the  real  foundation  of  the  existing  rights  of  pro- 
perty ?  Explain  this. 

88.  What  follows  from  this  account  of  the  origin  of  property  ? 
,Does  the  right  depend  upon  the  expediency  of  the  law  T 

To  what  perversion  is  this  principle  liable  ?  Illustrate 
this. 

CHAPTER  V. 

90.  {!.)  Whence  arises  the  obligation  to  perform  promises? 

Explain  this. 

Is  confidence  in  each  other  necessary  to  enable  men  to 
live  in  society  ? 

91.  (2.)  When  the  terms  of  the  promise  admit  of  more  senses 

than  one,  how  is  it  to  be  interpreted  ?    Why  not  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  promiser  actually  intended  it  ? 
Why  not  as  the  promisee  received  it  ? 
How  did  Temures  conduct  ? 

92.  Was  this  a  breach  of  promise  ? 

Upon  what  does  the  obligation  of  promises  depend  ? 
How  far  is  an  intention,  expressed  without  an  engage- 
ment, binding  ?     How  far  with  an  engagement  ? 

93.  (3.  1.)  Is  a  promise  binding,  which  it  is  impossible  to  per- 

form 1     When  is  the  maker  of  such  a  promise  guilty  1 
Give  examples. 

94.  (2.)  Are  promises  binding  when  the  performance  is  un- 

lawful ?    State  the  first  case  of  this. 

Why  are  the  panics  not  bound  in  this  case  ?  Slate  the 
other  case. 

Why  are  not  these  promises  valid  ? 
P5.    Does  this  extend  to  imperfect  obligations  ?     Why? 

What  is  the  caution  given  to  the  young  with  respect  to 
promises  ? 

Which  of  two  contradictory  obligations  should  prevail  ? 
96    Does  a  promise  lose  its  obligation  by  proceeding  from  an 
unlawful  motive  ?     Illustrate  this. 

What  is  the  single  case  in  which  the  obligation  of  a  pro- 
mise will  justify  a  conduct,  which,  unless  it  had  been 
promised,  would  be  unjust  ?  Give  examples. 


10  QUESTIONS    ON  [v.  I. ,  B.HI 

97.  (3.)  Are  promises  binding1  when  they  contradict  a  former 

promise  ?     Why  not  f 

!4.|  Are  promises  binding  before  acceptance  ?    Why  not  ? 
5.)  Are  promises  binding  which  are  released  by  the 

promisee  ? 

Why  is  not  a  promise  always  released  by  the  death  of 
the  promisee  ? 

98.  (6.  1.)  \Vhy  is  not  an  erroneous  promise  binding  where 

the  error  proceeds  from  the  mistake  or  misrepresenta- 
tion of  the  promisee  ?     Illustrate  this. 
(2.)  Why  not  .n  the  case  of  a  false  supposition  ?    Explain 
this  by  an  example. 

99.  Do  other  species  of  errors  annul  the  obligation  of  a  pro- 

mise ?     Illustrate  this. 
Give  an  example  of  a  promise  extorted  by  violence. 

100.  Is  it  doubted  whether  such  a  promise  be  binding  ? 
State  the  plainer  case  where  the  promise  is  binding. 
What  are  vows  ?    Why  is  the  violation  of  them  sinful  ? 
Are  vows  encouraged  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  ? 
Was  Jephtha's  vow  binding  1 

CHAPTER  VI. 

101.  What  is  a  contract  7    What  is  the  rule  for  their  construc- 

tion? 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Should  the  seller  disclose  the  faults  of  his  goods  ? 
1()2.    Prove  this.    What  is  the  exception  to  this  rule  ? 

How  do  you  prove  the  criminality  of  passing  bad  money  ? 

103.  What  is  always  a  fair  price,  except  in  cases  of  monopoly 

or  combination  ?     Illustrate  this. 
How  may  one  free  himself  from  the  tacit  engagement  to 

sell  at  the  market  value  ? 
Give  the  rule  in  the  case  of  goods  damaged  between 

sale  and  delivery. 

104.  What  determines  questions  of  this  sort  ?    Why?    Give 

an  example. 

CHAPTER  VUI. 

105.  What  are  contracts  of  hazard  ? 

Should  one  side  never  be  allowed  any  advantage  over 

the  other  ? 
What  is  the  proper  restriction  ?    Why  ? 

106.  Is  it  right  to  avail  one's  self  of  secrets  of  state,  &c.  m 

speculations  in  trade  1 
What  is  the  rule  for  the  conduct  of  the  person  insured  ? 

CHAPTER  IX. 

What  is  inconsumable  property  ? 


v.  i.,  BUI.]      PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  11 

107.  Who  should  bear  the  Joss,  when  the  thing  lent  is  lost  or 

damaged  ? 

How  are  the  two  cases,  proposed,  distinguished  ? 
How  should  the  increased  value  of  the  rent  of  a  house  or 

estate  be  appropriated  1     Give  examples  of  each  case. 

CHAPTER  X. 

108.  Is  the  taking  of  interest  justified  by  the  law  of  nature  ? 

109.  Whence  arose  the  prejudice  against  it? 

To  whom  did  this  prohibition  probably  apply  1    How  is 

this  confirmed  ? 
Give  a  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  law  of  interest. 

1 10.  Is  compound  interest  equitable  ?     Why  ? 

State  the  case  and  the  rule  for  money  borrowed  in  one 

country  to  be  repaid  in  another. 
Suppose  the  value  of  coin  to  be  altered. 

111.  Is  a  oorrovver  bound  to  secure  a  lender  against  loss,  so  far 

as  lies  in  his  power  ? 

Does  Paley  justify  imprisonment  for  debt  1  On  what 
groiuid  ? 

112.  What  does  he  say  is  the  only  question  about  the  law  for 

imprisoning  debtors  1 

Should  imprisonment  for  debt  be  considered  a  punish- 
ment ?  What  debtors  should,  therefore,  in  equity,  be 
exempted  from  it  ?  How  would  the  poor  suffer,  by 
mitigating  this  law. 

CHAPTER  XL 

113.  How  far  does  the  master's  power  over  his  servant  extend  ? 
How  should  the  treatment  of  servants  be  regulated  ? 
Why  is  not  a  servant  bound  to  obey  the  unlawful  com- 
mand of  his  master  ? 

114.  Does  the  master's  authority  justify  the  servant  in  doing 

wrong  ? 

How  should  clerks  and  apprentices  be  employed  ? 
For  what  acts  of  his  servant  is  the  master  responsible  i 
How  far  does  the  law  oJ  England  hold  the  master  re- 
sponsible ? 
How  are  recommendations  to  be  estimated,  according  to 

Doctor  Johnson  ? 
115    How  do  some  masters  injure  servants  who  wish  to  leave 

them  ? 

Why  should  a  master  of  a  family  restrain  his  household  1 
What  are  the  Scripture  injunctioas  in  respect  to  the  re- 
ciprocal duties  of  master  and  servant. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

116.  Whot  does  an  agent  undertake  and  promise  ? 

117.  What  is  the  chief  difficulty  of  an  agent's  situation  7 


12  QUESTIONS    ON  [V.  I.,  B.IJI. 

Is  an  agent,  who  acts  without  pay,  responsible  for  losses 

by  misfortune  ? 
In  what  cases  is  a  hired  agent  responsible  ? 

118.  What  is  the  universal  rule  ? 

Should  the  employer  pay  for  unforeseen  and  unexpected 
losses  of  the  agent  incurred  in  his  service  ?  Should  he 
pay  for  foreseen  losses  ? 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

1 19.  Give  the  rule  for  dividing  the  profits  of  partnership,  where 

one  partner  contributes  money  and  the  other  labour  ? 
Give  an  example  ? 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

120.  With  whom  does  the  holder  of  an  office,  in  a  learned 

seminary,  contract  ? 

What  do.es  the  contract  with  the  founder  enjoin  ?  With 
the  electors  1 

121.  When  may  an  office  not  be  discharged  by  a  deputy  ? 

Which  of  these  applies  to  parochial  clergy  employing 
curates  ?   In  what  case  does  this  objection  lose  its  force  ? 

122.  For  whom  is  this  indulgence  particularly  proper  ? 

CHAPTER  XV. 

123.  Why  is  a  lie  a  breach  of  promise  ? 

What  is  the  other  source  of  the  obligation  to  veracity  ? 
Is  a  falsehood,  which  deceives  no  one,  a  lie  1   Why  not  T 
In  what  other  case  is  a  falsehood  no  lie  ? 

124.  Do  the  laws  of  war  allow  deception  1 

Is  the  habit  of  fiction   and  exaggeration,  in  discourse, 

particularly  dangerous  and  unjustifiable  ? 
J25.    What  is  the  usual  consequence  of  white  lies  ? 
How  are  pious  frauds  to  be  regarded  ? 
Can  a  lie  exist  without  literal  falsehood  ? 

126.  May  a  lie  be  acted  ? 

Give  an  example  of  a  lie  of  omission. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

(1.)  What  is  the  form  of  oaths  among  the  Jews  and 
Scotch  ? 

127.  How  did  the  Greeks  and  Romans  make  a  private  con 

tract  ?    How  did  they  do  on  more  solemn  occasions  ? 
What  is  the  English  form  ? 
J28     What  bad  effects  have  resulted  from  it  ? 

2.  What  is  the  signification  of  an  oath  ? 

3.  What  Christians  decline  swearing  ? 

129.     1.    How  does  it  appear,  that  Christ  did  not  intend  to  for- 
bid judicial  oaths? 

(2.)  How  does  it  appear  that  the  prohibition  was  not  um 
versal  ? 


v.  i.,fi.  in.]      PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  13 

130.    (3.)  Did  Christ  allow  the  adjuration  of  the  high  priest  ? 
Did  St.  Paul  use  expressions  which  contain  the  nature  of 

oaths  ? 
To  what  species  of  swearing1  does  Christ's  prohibition 

apply  ? 
(IV.)  On  what  does  the  proper  force  of  the  obligation  of 

an  oath  depend  ? 
(1.)  Why  is  perjury  a  more  deliberate  sin  than  simple 

lying  ? 

2.)  How  does  it  violate  superior  confidence  ? 
3.)  How  has  God  sanctioned  oaths  ? 
V.)  When  are  promissory  oaths  not  binding  1 
VI.)  How  should  oaths  be  interpreted  ? 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

132.  What  does  the  witness  swear  ? 

Is  concealment  a  violation  of  this  oath  ?    Why  ? 
What  exceplion  is  there  to  this  rule  ?     Why  ? 
To  what  is  the  exception  confined  ? 

133.  Is  tenderness  to  the  prisoner  an  excuse  for  concealment  ? 

Why  not  ? 

How  should  the  witness  dispose  of  irrelevant  or  imper- 
tinent questions  ? 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

What  is  the  English  oath  of  allegiance  ? 

134.  What  was  it  intended  to  ascertain  ? 

(1.)  Doe*  this  oath  allow  the  juror  to  support  the  claims  of 

any  pretender  to  the  throne  except  the  reigning  prince  ? 

(2.)  Does  it  allow  an  attempt  to  depose  the  reigtiing 

Crince  for  any  reason  whatever  ?     Illustrate  this  from 
islory. 

(3.)  Does  the  oath  allow  the  taking  up  of  arms  against 
the  reigning  prince  from  private  motives  ?  Illustrate 
this. 

135.  (1.)  Does  the  oath  permit  resistance  to  the  king  when 

such  resistance  would  benefit  the  community  ?    Illus- 
trate this  from  history. 

(2.)  Does  the  oath  permit  resistance  to  unlawful  com- 
mands ? 

136.  (3.)  Does  the  oath  require  adherence  to  a  sovereign  after 

he  is  deposed?     Why  not  ? 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

What  is  the  oath  against  bribery  ?  Are  evasions  of  this 
oath  criminal  ? 

CHAPTER  XX. 

137     Wh}'  is  simony  so  called  1 


14  QUESTIONS    OX  [V.  I.,  D.  Ill, 

Is  the  sale  of  advowsons  allowable  ? 
What  is  the  oath  against  simony  ? 

138.  What  does  the  law  adjudge  to  be  simony  ? 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

139.  What  kinds  of  observances  do  members  of  the  English 

universities  swear  to  observe  ? 

How  are  unlawful  directions  disposed  of?  Impractica- 
ble directions  1 

140.  What  is  the  measure  of  the  juror's  duty  with  respect  to 

inconvenient  observances  ? 

(1.  2.  3.)  What  three  circumstances  are  requisite  m  or- 
der to  render  inconveniency  a  valid  excuse  ?  Enu- 
merate some  of  these  inconvenient  observances. 
WThy  should  they  be  dispensed  with  ? 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

141.  Why  is  subscription  to  articles  of  religion  considered  in 

connexion  with  oaths? 
Who  imposes  subscription  ? 
What  absurdity  follows  from  supposing  a  belief  in  every 

proj)osition  contained  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  is 

necessary  to  justify  subscription  ? 
What  did  the  authors  of  the  law  intend  ? 

142.  Who  should  not  subscribe  ? 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

What  kind  of  property  is  absolute  ? 

143.  Is  land  so  ?    Why  not  ? 

What  absurdity  would  the  absolute  possession  of  land  in- 
volve ? 

Does  history  confirm  this  account  of  property  ? 

What  are  the  good  effects  of  extending  the  owner's  pow- 
er over  his  property  beyond  his  life  ? 

How  long  does  the  English  law  allow  entails  to  operate  ? 

144.  Are  informal  wills  binding  on  the  conscience  ?    Why 

not? 

145.  From  what  does  the  regard  due  to  kindred,  in  the  dispo- 

sal of  fortune,  arise  f 

When  is  a  man  disengaged  from  the  force  of  these  rea- 
sons? 

146.  Why  should  poor  relatives  be  provided  for  ? 
When  is  the  omission  of  a  will  culpable  ? 

How  did  wills  first  come  under  the  cognizance  of  eccle- 
siastical courts  ? 

147.  How  must  succession  to  intestates  be  regulated  ? 
What  is  the  English  rule  of  distribution  of  personal  estate  ? 

Is  real  estate  so  equitably  disposed  of?     Is  there  no 
remedy  ? 


Y.i.jB.iu.]     PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  15 

BOOK  III.— PART  II.— CHAPTER  I. 

148.  How  does  Paley  use  the  term  charity  in  this  connexion  T 
Of  what  is  it  the  province  ?     Why  ? 

What  are  the  principal  methods  of  promoting  the  happi- 
ness of  our  inferiors  ? 

CHAPTER  II. 

149.  Illustrate  the  mode  of  treatment  proper  for  dependants. 
Who  is  under  the  greater  obligation,  the  rich  or  the  de- 
pendant, such  as  a  servant,  tradesman,  &c.  ? 

Is  good  usage  thrown  away  on  inferiors  ? 

150.  What  does  morality  forbid  us  to  do  with  respect  to  de- 

pendants ? 

CHAPTER  m. 
What  is  slavery  ?     In  what  may  it  justly  originate  ? 

151.  Is  the  African  slave  trade  excused  upon  these  principles  ? 
What  crimes  attend  the  prosecution  of  this  traffic  1    How 

is  it  attempted  to  be  justified  1    How  may  its  fall  be 
accelerated  ? 

152.  Did  slavery  exist  when  Christianity  rose  1 

Is  it  forbidden  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  ?     Why  not  ? 
How  should  emancipation  be  effected  1 

CHAPTER  IV. 

153.  Who  should  afford  professional  assistance  ? 

(1.)  Why  should  the  care  of  the  poor  be  the  principal  ob- 
ject of  all  laws  ? 
How  may  a  legislator  render  service  to  the  poor  in  the 

way  of  his  profession  1 
2.J  A  justice  of  the  peace  ? 


154. 


3.)  A  physician  ? 
4.    A  lawyer? 
5.)  A  clergyman  ? 


CHAPTER  V. 

155.  (1.)  Is  the  existence  of  such  an  emotion  as  pity  an  evi- 

dence of  our  obligation  to  assist  the  poor  * 

156.  How  is  their  claim  proved  to  be  founded  in  the  law  of 

nature  ?   How  is  their  claim  made  out  from  Scripture  1 

157.  What  is  there  remarkable  in  St.  Paul's  direction  on  this 

subject  ? 

158.  Is  the  community  of  goods,  among  certain  of  the  primi- 

tive Christians,  an  example  for  imitation  1 
How  did  the  apostles  proceed  in  relation  to  the  trust  thus 

reposed  in  them  ? 
(1.)  What  does  Paley  consider  to  be  the  best  mode  of 

charity  ? 

159.  Illustrate  this 


16  QUESTIONS    ON  [v.  I.,  B.  HI. 

(2.)  What  advantage  attends  charity  granted  by  sub* 

script  ion  ? 
(3.)  Why  should  beggars  be  relieved  ?    What  effect  has 

such  charity  on  the  donor  ? 

160.  What  are  the  species  of  charity  contrived  to  make  the 

money  expended  go  far  1 

How  may  the  owners  of  large  estates  do  good  in  a  chari- 
table way  ? 

161.  When  should  our  charity  be  private  ? 
What  species  of  liberality  is  not  charity  ? 

162.  (3.  1.)  What  is  generally  meant  by  having  nothing  to 

spare  ? 

(3.)  What  is  the  reply  of  St.  James  to  those  who  say  that 
charity  does  not  consist  in  giving  money  ? 

(4.)  Why  does  St.  Paul  omit  giving  to  the  poor  in  his  de- 
scription of  charity? 

(5.)  Why  is  paying  poor  rates  no  excuse  ? 

(6.)  Why  is  the  employment  of  the  poor  no  excuse  for 
the  employer  ? 

163.  (7.)  What  answer  should  be  made  to  the  excuse  about 

habit  ? 


(8.)  About  ingratitude  ? 
(9.)    "      •' 


About  imposition  ? 
About  applying  to  the  parishes  1 
About  encouraging  idleness  ? 
About  giving  to  strangers  ? 


CHAPTER  VI. 

164.  How  is  revenge  distinguished  ? 
What  is  anger  ?     Revenge  ? 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Is  all  anger  sinful  1     When  is  anger  sinful  7 

165.  Name  some  of  the  proper  sedatives  of  anger. 

166.  What  is  the  remedy  proposed  by  the  Gospel  1 
What  is  the  effect  of  habitual  self-control  * 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

When  does  retribution  become  revenge  ? 

167.  How  may  we  distinguish  between  a  disposition  to  do  jus- 

tice and  a  desire  of  revenge  ? 

Does  the  light  of  nature  show  the  criminality  of  revenge? 
Does  the  authority  of  Scripture  condemn  it  ?  Repeat 
some  of  the  passages  in  point. 

168.  What  is  evident  from  these  passages  ? 

Do  these  passages  interfere  with  the  punishment  of  pub- 
lic offenders  ? 

169.  Is  the  punishment  of  vice,  by  withdrawing  our  company 

and  civility,  lawful  ? 


V.  I.,  B.  in.]    PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  17 

Does  charity  require  us  to  trust  those  who  have  defraud- 
ed us,  or  confer  favours  on  those  who  have  offended 
us? 

170.  Did  Christ  insist  particularly  on  the  practice  of  forgive- 

ness ? 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Why  is  duelling  absurd  7 
Why  does  the  duellist  fight  ?  . 

171.  Define  murder. 

What  would  be  the  consequence  of  allowing  the  law  of 

honour  to  create  exceptions  to  Divine  prohibitions  ? 
Does  a  sense  of  shame  justify  the  duellist's  conduct  ? 

172.  Why  does  not  the  principle  of  forgiveness  apply  to  the 

case  ? 

Js  any  remedy  likely  to  be  found  ? 
Will  not  the  law  repair  the  injuries  which   occasion 

duels? 
What  remedy  does  Paley  propose  for  the  army  ? 

CHAPTER  X. 

173.  Is  it  possible  to  live  always  at  peace  ? 

How  are  the  instances  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Matthew  ex- 
plained ? 

What  would  be  the  effect  of  a  rule  which  forbade  all  op- 
position to  injury  ? 

174.  What  does  Christianity  forbid  ? 

When  is  a  lawsuit  consistent  with  Christianity  ? 
How  should  it  be  conducted  ? 

175.  How  should  criminal  actions  be  conducted  ? 

In  what  degree  is  a  private  person,  injured  by  a  criminal 

offence,  bound  to  prosecute  ? 
Should  the  stigma,  which  may  be  fixed  on  an  informer, 

deter  us  from  bringing1  criminals  to  justice  ? 
What  species  of  prosecutions  are  wrong? 

CHAPTER  XI. 

176.  In  what  does  the  mischief  of  ingratitude  consist  ? 
What  reason  for  cultivating  gratitude  is  drawn  from  re- 
ligion ? 

177.  Can  gratitude  oblige  us  to  do  wrong  ? 

Is  conscience  sometimes  insincerely  pleaded  to  get  rid  of 
obligations  ? 

CHAPTER  XII. 

How  does  it  appear  that  speaking  is  acting  7 
How  is  slander  distinguished  ? 
What  is  malicious  slander  ? 

178.  Mav  there  exist  malice  in  the  circulation  of  truths  t 


18  QUESTIONS    ON  [v.  II.,  B.  IV. 

How  Is  slander  distinguished  from  fraud  ? 

What  makes  the  difference  between  malicious  and  in 
considerate  slander  ? 

In  what  does  its  guilt  consist  ? 

179.   Is  information,  communicated  for  warning,  to  be  regard- 
ed as  slander  1 

How  does  Paley  characterize  indiscriminate  praise  ? 

BOOK  III.— PART  III.— CHAPTER  XI. 

223.  How  are  filial  duties  divided  as  it  respects  time  ? 
What  species  of  obedience  is  required  in  early  child- 
hood? 

What  is  the  duty  of  persons  who  remain  in  their  father's 
family  after  arriving  at  mature  age  ?  After  leaving 
the  father's  family  ? 

224.  What  is  the  parent's  duly  when  the  child's  happiness  evi- 

dently depends  on  a  certain  attachment,  or  the  rejec- 
tion of  a  certain  profession  ? 

What  is  usually  the  fact  with  respect  to  these  attach- 
ments and  aversions  ? 

225.  Have  parents  a  right  to  insist  on  marriages  to  which  their 

children  are  averse  ? 

226.  Is  compliance  with  the  parents'  wish,  in  this  case,  wrong  ? 

Why? 

What  is  the  parent's  duty  in  all  contests  with  his  chil- 
dren ? 

May  parental  authority  interfere  with  the  discharge  of 
a  trust  ? 

What  is  the  doctrine  of  Scripture  in  relation  to  filial 
duty  ?  Of  the  law  of  England  ? 

VOL.  ii.  BOOK  IV. 

5.  What  does  Paley  consider  as  duties  to  ourselves  1 

CHAPTER  I. 

6.  May  a  right  be  defended  at  all  hazards  ?    Why  not  ? 
How  is  this  right,  if  it  ever  existed,  now  suspended  ? 
When  are  all  extremities  justifiable  ?    Why  ? 

7.  In  what  cases  does  the  law  of  England  justify  homicide  f 

CHAPTER  II. 

8.  What  are  some  of  the  consequences  of  drunkenness  ? 
Is  drunkenness  a  contagious  vice  ? 

10     What  are  St.  Paul's  precepts  with  respect  to  this  vice  ? 
What  is  the  rule  laid  down  for  determining  the  guilt  of 

a  drunken  man's  actions  ? 
11.    What  is  the  rule  in  case  of  partial  privation  of  reason? 

(iivo  an  example 


V.  II.,B.V.]       PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  19 

Can  these  rules  be  actually  applied  1 
Is  the  appetite  for  spirits  an  acquired  one  ? 
12.   How  do  habits  of  drunkenness  usually  originate  ?     How 
are  they  continued  ? 

CHAPTER  III. 

14.  What  is  the  true  question  concerning  the  lawfulness  of 

suicide  ? 
Why  is  not  supposing  one's  self  to  be  useless  a  sufficient 

reason  for  suicide  ? 
Is  suicide  lawful  to  those  who  leave  none  to  lament  their 

death  ? 

15.  What  wo  ild  be  the  result  of  allowing  suicide  in  any  case  ? 
What   virtues  may  be  exercised  in  situations  of  great 

wretchedness  ? 

16.  What  are  some  of  the  consequences  of  suicide  to  the  sur- 

viving friends  1 

Is  there  an  express  prohibition  of  suicide  in  Scripture  ? 
(1.)  In  what  passages  is  human  life  spoken  of  as  a  term 

assigned  to  us  ? 

17.  What  is  the  inference  from  these  1 

(2.)  How  do  the  exhortations  to  patience  establish  the 
guilt  of  suicide  1 

18.  (3.)  How  does  the  conduct  of  the  apostles  prove  it  ? 
What  artificial  and  imposing  argument  is  urged  in  favour 

of  suicide  1 

19.  How  is  it  answered  ? 

BOOK  V.— CHAPTER  I. 

20.  What  arc  some  of  those  duties  styled  duties  towards  God  1 

How  are  they  divided  ?     What  is  the  difference  be- 
tween them  ? 

21.  Of  what  is  divine  worship  made  up  ? 

CHAPTER  II. 

Is  prayer  a  natural  duty  ?    For  what  is  it  necessary  • 
On  what  does  the  duty  of  prayer  depend  ?     Why  ? 
What  objection  is  urged  against  the  efficacy  of  prayer 

22.  What  is  'the  answer  1 

What  is  the  whole  difficulty  attending  the  subject  ? 

What  considerations  are  offered  towards  solving  this  diffi- 
culty ? 

Is  any  thing  further  necessary  than  to  remove  the  appa- 
rent repugnancy  between  the  success  of  prayer  ana  the 
character  of  the  Deity  1 

23.  What  false  notions  of  prayer  are  sometimes  entertained  ? 
How  does  Paley  illustrate  his  notion  of  prayer  by  the  ex- 
ample of  a  just  prince  and  his  subjects  1 

24.  Is  a  just  prince  necessarily  inexorable  ? 


20  QUESTIONS    ON  [v.  II.,  B.V. 

25.  What  bad  effects  would  result  from  the  invariably  appa- 

rent success  of  prayer  ? 

26.  Is  there  any  impropriety  in  petitions  for  particular  favours, 

or  in  intercession  for  whole  communities  ? 

CHAPTER  III. 

27.  Is  there  any  positive  injunction  to  prayer  to  be  drawn 

from  naiural  religion  ? 

Does  revealed  religion  enjoin  it,  and  promise  accept- 
ance ? 

Is  the  assurance  of  revelation  the  only  proof  of  the  effica- 
cy of  prayer  ? 

28.  1.)  ISume  some  of  the  texts  enjoining  prayer  in  general. 
2.)  Give  examples  of  prayer  for  particular  favours. 

3.)  Give  directions  to  pray  for  public  blessings. 

29.  (4.)  Give  examples  of  intercession  and  exhortations  to  in- 

tercede for  others. 

(5.)  Name  the  texts  which  authorize  the  repetition  of  un- 
successful prayers. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

30.  Does  one  description  of  prayer  supersede  the  necessity  of 

others  ? 
What  are  some  of  the  advantages  of  private  prayer  ? 

31.  What  are  the  injunctions  of  Christ  with  respect  to  private 

prayer  ? 
What  are  the  peculiar  uses  of  family  prayer  ? 

32.  Why  is  public  worship  a  necessary  institution  1    What  are 

its  advantages  ? 
What  excuse  is  sometimes  offered  for  its  neglect  ? 

33.  Why  is  this  excuse  inadmissible  ? 

(1.)  What  advantages  result  from  public  worship  which 
wnv  not  designed  in  its  institution  ? 

34.  (2.)  Doos  public  worship  remind  us  strongly  of  the  natural 

equality  of  mankind  ? 

35.  Is  public  worship  expressly  enjoined  in  the  Scriptures  1 

CHAPTER  V. 

36.  What  is  the  foundation  of  the  reasons  for  the  use  of  a  lit- 

urgy ? 

What  are  the  principal  advantages  of  a  liturgy  ? 
What  is  joint  prayer  1 

37.  What  inconveniences  attend  the  use  of  a  liturgy  ? 
Did  Christ  sanction  the  use  of  a  set  form  of  prayer  ? 
What  are  the  properties  required  in  a  public  liturgy  ? 
(1.)  Are  liturgies  usually  diffuse  ? 

88.    Should  a  liturgy  be  very  concise  ?     Why  not  1 

What  are  the  disadvantages  of  prolixity  in  a  church  ser- 
vice ? 


r.  ii.,  B  v.]     PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  21 

How  came  the  English  liturgy  to  be  so  long  ? 

39.  What  changes  does  Paley  propose  to  make  in  it  ? 
What  are  its  excellences  ? 

Of  what  does  the  litany  consist  ? 

Should  a  liturgy  express  just  conceptions  of  the  Divine  at- 
tributes ?     Why  is  this  important  ? 

40.  Why  is  it  important  that  a  liturgy  should  recite  such  wants 

as  the  congregation  are  likely  to  feel  ? 
Why  are  controverted  points  to  be  avoided  in  a  liturgy  ? 

CHAPTER  VI. 

41.  Why  are  set  times  for  public  worship  most  expedient  ? 

42.  Of  what   advantage   is   the   Sabbath   to  the   labouring 

classes  ? 

Is  any  thing  lost  by  the  intermission  of  labour  one  day  in 
seven  ? 

43.  Is  the  rest  afforded  to  brutes  a  recommendation  of  the  in- 

stitution ? 

Would  these  reasons  equally  apply  to  setting  apart  one 
day  in  eight  or  ten  ? 

CHAPTER  VII. 

What  are  the  two  important  questions  in  relation  to  the 
Christian  Sabbath  ? 

44.  Where  is  the  Sabbath  first  mentioned;  and  how  ? 
When  do  we  next  hear  of  it  ? 

45.  How  was  it,  eventually,  solemnly  established  ? 

What  reason  is  there  for  supposing  the  first  institution  to 

have  taken  place  in  the  wilderness  ? 
Is  the  passage  in  the  2d  chapter  of  Genesis  inconsistent 

with  this '/ 

46.  Does  the  passage  Ezek.  xx.  10 — 12;  and  that  in  Nfeh.  ix. 

12,  support  this  position  ? 

47    What  duties  were  enjoined  on  the  Jewish  Sabbath  ?    Un- 
der what  penalties  ? 

48.  Was  it  well  observed  ? 

What  is  the  main  question  with  respect  to  ourselves  ? 
Why  was  it  necessary  first  to  examine  the  history  of  the 

institution  ? 

What  follows  from  the  date  fixed  by  Paley  ? 
What  arguments  confirm  this  belief? 

49.  Is  the  distinction  of  the  Sabbath,  in  its  nature,  a  ceremo- 

nial institution  ? 

What  conseauences  would  result  from  admitting  its  obliga- 
tion on  Christians  ? 

Did  St.  Paul  consider  it  a  part  of  the  Jewish  ritual  ? 

What  objections  arise  ? 

60.  How  is  the  first  objection  answered  ? 

61.  The  second? 


22  QUESTIONS    OX  [v.  II.,  B.  VI. 

52.  Was  the  practice  of  assembling1  on  the  first  day  of  the 

week  early  and  universal  in  the  Christian  church  ? 
Name  some  instances  of  it. 

53.  When  does  it  appear  to  have  obtained  the  name  of  the 

Lord's  day  ? 

Did  Christ  and  his  apostles  insist  on  a  cessation  from  la- 
bour on  that  day  I 

Why  would  it  have  been  inexpedient  ? 

54.  What  is  the  conclusion  from  the  whole  inquiry  7 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

55.  What  are  the  uses  proposed  by  the  institution  of  the  Sab- 

bath ? 

What  was  the  peculiar  distinction  of  the  first  day  of  the 
week  among1  the  primitive  Christians  ? 

56.  How  is  the  Sabbath  violated  ? 

What  questions  are  asked  in  relation  to  the  different 

modes  of  passing1  the  day  ? 
How  are  they  answered  ? 

CHAPTER  DC. 

57.  How  is  a  reverence  for  God  impaired  ? 

58.  What  is  taking  the  name,  of  God  in  vain  ? 
Is  the  prohibition  recognised  by  Christ  1 
How  is  the  offence  aggravated  ? 

59.  Is  ridicule  of  sacred  things  forbidden  by  the  third  com- 

mandment ? 

Is  fanaticism  more  rational  than  levity  and  unconcern  ? 

What  are  the  legitimate  weapons  of  controversy  ? 
GO.    In  what  temper,  and  with  what  views,  should  it  be  con- 
ducted ? 

Has  this  been  the  practice  of  controversial  writers? 

What  wrong  statements  have  been  made  by  unbelievers  ? 

61.  Is  Christianity  answerable  for  the  character  of  its  cler- 

For  3ie  wars  that  have  been  waged  by  those  bearing  the 

Christian  name  ? 
Have  the  succession  and  variety  of  popular  religions  been 

urged  as  an  argument  against  the  truth  of  Christianity. 

62.  Is  this  fair?    Why  not  ? 

In  what  forms  does  infidelity  present  itself  to  the  unthink- 
ing many  ? 

63.  How  has  Gibbon  attacked  Christianity  ? 

BOOK  VI.— CHAPTER  I. 

C5.   What  were  the  earliest  forms  of  government  ? 


How  are  men  prepared  for  government  ? 
66.    What  are  the  first  and  second 


stages  in  the  progress  of 
dominion  1 


v.  ii.,  B.VI.]     PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  23 

What  steps  lead  to  adopting1  the  government  of  a  chief  or 
head  of  a  clan? 

67.  How  does  a  military  leader  naturally  succeed  to  a  patri- 

arch 1 
What  is  the  origin  of  hereditary  rank  ? 

68.  Is  this  account  of  the  origin  of  government  confirmed  by 

history  ? 
How  is  the  early  existence  of  vast  empires  accounted  for? 

69.  How  does  it  appear  that  the  earliest  governments  were 

monarchies  I 

CHAPTER  II. 

70.  Where  does  the  physical  strength  of  the  community  actu- 

ally reside  ? 

How  does  Paley  classify  those  who  obey  the  government  ? 
(1.)  Why  do  the  first  class  obey  ? 

71.  Enumerate  certain  acknowledged  rights  which  are  found- 

ed upon  prescription. 
How  are  the  religious  feelings  of  the  community  made  to 

favour  this  prescriptive  title  ? 
Illustrate  this  from  history. 

72.  Is  every  opinion,  not  founded  upon  argument,  a  preju- 

dice ? 

(2.)  By  what  considerations  are  those  who  obey  from  rea- 
son restrained  ? 

(3.J  Those  who  obey  from  self-interest  ? 

(1.)  Why  is  it  the  interest  of  civil  governors  to  respect 
their  subjects? 

73.  (2.)  Why  should  they  avoid  innovation  ? 

74    (4.)  Why  are  assemblies  and  conventions  dangerous  to 

absolute  governments  ? 
What  rule  o?  caution  results  from  this  ? 

CHAPTER  III. 

75.  How  do  Locke  and  others  attempt  to  prove  civil  obedi- 

ence to  be  a  moral  duty  ? 
Describe  the  express  social  compact. 

76.  Describe  the  tacit  compact. 

What  are  the  objections  to  this  account  of  the  subject  ? 
How  is  it  opposed  to  fact  ? 

What  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  social  comoact  which 
history  furnishes  ? 

77.  Is  the  original  compact  proposed  as  a  fact  ? 

Is  it  referred  to  as  having  actually  taken  place  ? 

78.  How  are  the  successors  of  the  original  contracting  parties 

understood  to  promise  allegiance  ? 
Is  this  sort  of  promise  intelligible  to  them,  or  really  binding  ? 

79.  Is  a  right  to  the  land  necessary  to  the  validity  of  the  social 

compact  made  by  its  possessors  ? 


24  QUESTIONS    ON  [V.  II,  B.  YI 

(1st.}  What  are  called  the  fundamentals  of  the  constitu- 
tion ? 

80    What  use  is  made  of  them  by  the  opposers  of  govern- 
ment ? 

(2dly.)  How  does  it  appear  that  the  doctrine  of  tne  social 
compact  is  dangerous  to  civil  liberty  ? 

81.  (3dly.)  How  is  it  dangerous  to  the  ruler  ? 

What  is  assigned  as  the  only  ground  of  the  subject's  obli- 
gation ? 

82.  How  is  this  proved  ? 

How  is  the  justice  of  each  case  of  resistance   deter- 
mined ? 

Who  shall  be  judge?    Why? 
(1.)  When  is  it  a  duty  to  resist  government  ? 

83.  (2.)  Upon  what  does  the  lawfulness  of  resistance  depend? 
(3.)  Does  irregularity  in  the  first  foundation  of  the  state 

justify  resistance  f 
Blustrate  this  from  bis  ory. 
(4.)  Is  every  invasion  of  liberty  to  be  resisted  ? 

84.  (5.)  Should  any  law  whatever  be  changed  when  the  pnb- 

lic  good  requires  it  ? 

(6.)  How,  and  why,  does  the  case  of  an  Englishman  and 
that  of  a  Frenchman  differ  ? 

85.  (7.)  Is  every  member  of  the  civil  community  bound  by  the 

public  interest  ?     Why  ? 

86.  How  does  this  apply  to  the  case  of  Great  Britain  and  her 

late  American  colonies  ? 

CHAPTER  IV. 
37.    Does  Christianity  ascertain  the  extent  of  OOT  ciril  rights 

and  obligations  ? 

What  passages  are  referred  to  in  the  controversy  ? 
88.    What  questions  are  to  be  considered  in  reference  to  these 


How  should  one,  who  doubts  the  moral  obligation  of  civil 
obedience,  be  reasoned  with  ? 

89.  How  should  one,  who  is  debating  the  expediency  of  revolt, 

be  dealt  with  ? 
Is  there  any  inconsistency  in  this  ? 

90.  How  is  this  mode  of  proceeding  applicable  to  the  interpre- 

tation of  the  passages  aboTe  quoted  ? 
Is  the  Scripture  thus  vindicated  from  the  charge  of  incul- 
cating passive  obedience  ? 

91 .  Did  the  apostles  dispute  the  rigid  of  the  rolers,  at  that  pe- 

riod, to  the  obedience  of  Christian  disciples  ? 
Which  of  the  above  questions  do  they  appear  to  have  had 

in  view  ? 

92    What  does  the  question,  "  Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto 
Caesar T'  imply? 


T.H.,  B.VI.]    PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  25 

93.  Does  the  phrase,  "  ordinance  of  God,"  authorize  super- 

stitious ideas  of  the  regal  character  ? 
Does  it  not  apply  to  republican  as  well  as  despotic  forms 
of  government  ? 

CHAFFER  V. 

94.  What  is  civil  liberty  ? 

Why  is  it  preferable  to  natural  liberty  ? 

What  does  this  definition  of  civil  liberty  import  ? 

What  is  intimated  by  this  ? 

95.  What  follows  from  this  account  of  civil  liberty  ? 
Illustrate  the  distinction  between  civil  and  personal  lib- 
erty ? 

96.  What  is  the  other  idea  of  civil  liberty  ?     Illustrate  this. 

97.  Mention  some  of  the  definitions  of  civil  liberty  founded  on 

this  idea. 
What  inaccuracy  do  they  labour  under  1 

98.  Which  is  the  freest  people,  constitution,  and  government  t 

CHAPTER  VI. 

99.  Define  the  sovereign  power. 
Define  the  three  forms  of  government. 
What  are  the  advantages  of  monarchy  I 

100.  What  are  the  dangers  ? 

The  advantages  of  aristocracy  ? 
The  mischiefs? 

The  advantages  of  a  republic  ? 
The  evils? 

101.  What  is  a  mixed  government  ? 

By  what  rule  are  its  advantages  and  evils  determined  f 

How  is  the  rule  limited  ? 

Where  is  corruption  to  be  feared  ? 

102.  Whv  is  a  hereditary  monarchy  preferable  to  an  elective 

one? 
Is  an  hereditary  monarchy  favourable  to  permanence 

and  stability  in  the  plans  of  the  government  1 
Describe  the  two  kinds  of  aristocracy. 

103.  Which  is  the  more  tolerable?    Why? 
Is  aristocracy  worse  than  despotism  ? 
Illustrate  tins  from  the  history  of  Denmark. 

104.  Of  Sweden.    Of  England. 

What  is  the  distinctive  feature  cf  a  democracy? 

(1.)  What  advantage  does  it  afford  to  education  and 

manners  among  the  higher  orders  ? 
106.   J2.J  Of  what  advantage  is  it  to  the  common  people  ? 

(3.)  How  does  it  furnish  occupation  to  tne  thoughts  of  all 

classes? 

106    What  are  the  objections  to  a  widely  extended  republic  t 
3 


26  QUESTIONS    ON  [v.H.,B.  VI. 

107.  How  are  they  obviated  1 

108.  Where  is  the  experiment  about  to  be  tried  1 

CHAPTER  VII. 

What  is  the  constitution  of  a  country  ? 

What  do  the  terms  constitutumal   and  unconstitutional 

mean  in  England  1 
Of  what  is  their  system  of  jurisprudence  made  up  ? 

109.  Can  an  act  of  parliament  be  unconstitutional  ? 

What    mistake   do  writers  on  the   British   constitution 
make  ? 

110.  What  is  the  difference  between  the  theory  and  the  actual 

state  of  the  British  government  ? 

111.  How  are  plans  of  reform  to  be  laid  ? 

Are  the  direct  or  the  incidental  effects  of  innovation  the 

more  important  1 
Illustrate  this  from  history. 

112.  What  would  be  the  effect  of  a  protracted  contest  be- 

tween the  king  and  the  parliament  ? 
Did  those  who  gave  the  king  the  power  to  appoint  his 
servants  foresee  the  important  results  of  that  act  1 

113.  What  is  the  end  peculiar  to  a  good  government  ? 
What  is  the  end  essential  to  a  good  government  ? 
Does  this  last  afford  an  apology  for  some  apparent  abuses  ? 
How  is  the  government  of  England  formed  ? 

114.  What  is  the  perfection  intended  by  this  scheme  1 
How  does  it  provide  for  the  interest  of  its  subjects  1 
How  does  each  order  become  virtually  represented  ? 

115.  Wrhat  security  is  afforded  against  the  'formation  of  juntos 

am'^ng  the  iegisiaiors  1 
How  is  the  subject  guarded  from  burthens  1 
Are  the  debates  of  parliament  public  1 
How  must  a  representative  conduct  to  become  popular  ? 

116.  For  what  purposes  is  the  executive  authority  given  to  the 

king  ? 

In  what  points  is  the  king  intrusted  with  ample  pe«  er  t 
In  what  two  points  is  his  power  cautiously  limiteo  { 
Where  do  taxes  originate  '/ 

117.  How  is  the  application  of  them  watched  ? 
How  is  the  power  of  punishment  limited  7 
How  is  arbitrary  connnfiment  provided  against  ? 
What  is  intact  by  a  writ,  of  habeas  corpus  ? 

113.    How  are  persons,  charged  with  treason,  protected  from 

injustice  in  their  trial  ? 
What  is  the  balance  of  the  constitution  ? 
119.    How  is  the  power  of  parliament  checked? 

How  is  the  arbitrarv  application  of  this  negative  check* 
ed- 


Y.  XL,  B.  vi.]   PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  27 

What  other  checks  does  the  British  constitution  provide  ? 

120.  What  is  the  balance  of  interest  ? 
Illustrate  its  operation. 

121.  What  is  the  use  of  the  house  of  lords  ? 

122.  In  what  does  the  danger  from  popular  fury  consist  ? 

123.  How  are  the  clergy  represented  in  parliament  ? 

Is  there  any  sufficient  reason  for  exempting  members  of 
parliament  from  arrest  for  debt  1 

124.  Describe  the  irregularities  of  the  popular  representation. 
Are  all  the  people  represented  1 

What  proportion  of  the  house  of  commons  buy  their 
seats  1 

125.  Notwithstanding  this,  are  the  fittest  legislators  generally 

sent  to  parliament  ? 

126.  Of  what  is  the  house  of  commons  actually  composed  ? 
Are  these  as  worthy  to  be  trusted  as  any  that  could  be 

elected  in  any  mode  1 
Are  the  members  generally,  rich  ? 

127.  Are  the  representatives  or  boroughs,  generally,  men  of 

talents  ? 

How  does  this  happen? 
After  all,  is  their  present  representation  popular? 

128.  Is  it  easy  to  discover  a  proposal,  among  the  plans  of  re- 

form, which  will  render  the  house  of  commons  more  a 
popular  body  than  it  now  is  ? 
Is  there  any  reason  to  doubt  the  necessity  of  reform  ? 

129.  Is  the  government  always  opposed  from  principle  ? 
Why  would  an  increase  of  power  in  the  house  of  com- 
mons be  dangerous  ? 

Illustrate  this  from  the  English  history. 

130.  From  the  American  history. 

Does  Paley  justify  bribery  or  secret  solicitation  ? 
What  influence  does  he  defend  ? 

131.  What  are  subjects  of  indifference  ? 
Of  apparent  indifference  ? 

How  are  these  cases  detennined  ? 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

132.  What  is  the  first  maxim  of  a  free  state  7 
What  are  the  reasons  of  it  ? 

133.  Illustrate  this. 

Why  is  parliament  less  liable  to  the  influence  of  partiali- 
ty than  the  courts  ? 
How  is  the  rule  violated  ? 

134.  How  does  the  independency  of  the  judges  secure  the  im- 

partial administration  ofjustice? 
Illustrate  this  from  history. 

135.  Why  should  the  number  of  judges  be  small  ? 
Illustrate  the  propriety  of  this  from  history. 


28  QUEST-IONS  ON          [v.  u.,  B.  vx. 

136.  \Vhy  should  legal  proceedings  be  had  in  open  court  ? 
What  is  the  advantage  of  having  two  or  three  courts  of 

concurrent  jurisdiction  ? 
What  are  the  uses  of  a  supreme  court  of  appeals  ? 

137.  Describe  the  two  kinds  of  judicature. 
What  are  their  separate  advantages  ? 
How  are  these  united  by  the  English  laws  ? 

138.  How  is  this  privilege  of  trial  by  jury  infringed  upon  ? 

Is  it  always  adequate  to  the  administration  of  equal  jus 

tice? 
When  does  it  fail  in  this  respect  ? 

139.  Is  this  a  sufficient  reason  for  its  disuse  ? 
What  is  the  local  division  of  courts  of  justice  ? 
Describe  the  disadvantages  of  each  kind. 

How  does  the  law  of  England    remedy  both  objec 
tions  ? 

140.  What  are  the  peculiar  qualifications  of  a  circuit  judge  ? 
Why  should  the  decisions  of  the  courts  be  respected  in 

subsequent  trials  1 

141.  What,  besides  the  danger  of  partiality,  furnishes  a  reason 

for  adhering  to  precedents  ? 

142.  What  is  the  duty  of  the  court,  besides  rendering  justice  to 

the  parties  ? 

What  two  inconveniences  anse  from  an  adherence  to 
precedents  ? 

143.  Are  the  maxims  of  natural  justice  few  and  evident  ? 
And  is  jurisprudence,  nevertheless,  an  intricate  science  ? 
(1st.)  How  may  we  account  for  so  many  sources  of  liti 

gat  ion  ? 

144.  What  is  supposed  by  a  treatise  of  morality,  with  respect 

to  motives  and  intentions  ?     Give  an  example. 
Are  these  motives  known  in  fact  ? 
WTiat,  then,  is  the  use  of  a  treatise  of  morals  ? 
(2dly.)    Does  the   law  of  nature  furnish  rules  for  all 

cases  ? 
Where,  then,  must  the  rules,  not  furnished  by  it,  be 

sought  ? 

145.  How  are  things,  in  their  nature  indeterminate,  to  be  set- 

tled ?      Give  examples. 
Things  arbitrary  ?     Give  examples. 

146.  (3dly.)  In  contracts  with  many  conditions,  what  should 

guide  the  decision  ? 
Is  this  a  source  of  uncertainty  ? 
(4thlv.)  How  are  rights  of  remote  and  ancient  origin  to 

Ire  settled? 

147.  Whence  arises  the  difficulty  of  applying  natural  law  to 

these  cases  ? 

(5thly.)  Does  natural  law  so.ttle  the  amount  of  damages? 
How  must  this  be  settled  ? 


V.  II.,  B.  vi.]         PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  29 

148.  (6thly.)  How  does  the  interpretation  of  written  laws 

afford  room  for  dispute  ? 

(7thly.)  How  are  the  deliberations  of  courts,  on  new 
cases,  rendered  difficult  ? 

149.  What  is  the  greatest  source  of  difficulty  V 
How  is  the  contention  of  the  bar  carried  on  ? 
Give  an  example  in  the  case  of  literary  property. 

150.  Are  juries  required  to  be  unanimous  in  their  decis- 
Is  this  reasonable  ?  [ions  ? 

151.  How  does  this  provision  operate  ? 

What  is  the  highest  court  of  appeal  in  England  ? 
Are  the  lords  qualified  for  this  office  ? 
Of  what  is  the  house  of  lords  composed  ? 

152.  How  is  this  general  incapacity  of  the  lords  remedied  ? 

CHAPTER  IX. 

153.  What  is  the  end  of  human  punishment  ? 

In  what  proportion  are  crimes  punished  by  human 
governments  ? 

154.  Should  punishment  be  employed  when  the  crime  can 

be  otherwise  prevented  * 
Give  an  example  of  its  disuse. 
Why  does  a  violation  of  confidence  meet  with  lenity 

from  the  law  ? 

155.  Does  the  facility  of  perpetrating  a  crime  increase  the 

punishment  ?     Give  examples. 


Wiiy  are  they  punished  so  severely  ? 
Why  is  a  different  mei 


neasure  of  punishment  expected 
from  God  from  that  which  is  observed  by  man  ? 

157.  What  are  the  two  methods  of  administering  penal 

justice  ? 
Which  prevails  in  England  ?     Why  ? 

158.  Upon  what  policy  is  the  law  of  England  constructed  ? 
What  are  its  advantages  ? 

159.  Should  privately  stealing  from  the  person  be  capitally 

punished  ? 

Who  has  the  prerogative  ? 
How  should  it  be  exercised  ? 

160.  What  are  the  principal  aggravations  to  be  considered  ? 
Why  should  combination  be  considered  an  aggrava- 
tion of  crime  ? 

Which  of  a  number  should  be  singled  out  for  severe 
punishment  ? 

161.  What  sort  of  injuries  should  government  first  redress  ? 

Why? 

What  "circumstances  add  to  the  comparative  malig- 
nancy of  crimes  of  violence  ? 

What  are  the  most  noxious  kinds  of  fraud  ? 

162.  Why? 

3* 


30  QUESTIONS  ON  [V.  II.,  B.  VI. 

Do  they  affect  property  only  ? 
Do  they  ultimately  affect  life  ? 

163.  Why  should  a  distinction  be  made  between  the  forg- 

ery of  bills  of  exchange  and  that  of  leases,  bonc£,V 
Why  is  perjury  a  heinous  offence  ?  [&c.  x 

Is  it  equal  to  the  worst  of  frauds  ? 

164.  How  is  obtaining  money  by  secret  threats  to  be  regard- 
>  ed  ? 

\A\Thy  are  frequent  capital  punishments  necessary  in 
^    England? 

yf  How  are  crimes  prevented  in  despotic  countries  ? 
Would  this  be  tolerated  in  England  ? 

165.  How  do  great  cities  multiply  crimes  ? 

Why  does  riot  transportation  furnish  a  sufficient  renn 
edy  for  capital  offences  ?  / 

166.  What  is  the  end  of  punishment  ? 

Why  is  the  reformation  of  criminals  nearly  hopeless  ?  V 
What  species  of  punishment  is  best  suited  for  reforma-  ^ 

tion?     Why? 

What  are  the  modes  of  overcoming  aversion  to  la- 
bour ? 

167.  What  difficulty  remains  after  reformation  has  been 

effected  ? 

168.  What  is  the  proper  definition  of  torture  ? 

To  what  exceptions  is  the  question  by  torture  liable  ? 
What  is  the  effect  of  barbarous  spectacles  of  suffering  ? 

169.  How  are  infamous  punishments  mismanaged  in  Eng- 

land ? 

170.  Why  is  the  certainty  of  punishment  more  important 

than  its  severity^ 

Is  a  strict  police  more  effective  than  a  severe  code  ?)( 
Are  juries  too  particular  in  respect  to  evidence  ? 

171.  What  maxims  have  occasioned  this  lenity  ? 

Is  circumstantial  evidence  always  weaker  than  direct 
testimony  ? 

172.  Does  Paley  think  it  better  that  ten  guilty  persons  es-y 

cape  than  that  one  innocent  man  should  suffer  ?  A 
Why  not  ? 

CHAPTER  X. 

173.  What  remarkable  difference  is  to  be  observed  between 

the  Jewish  and  Christian  institutions  ? 
Did  not  Christ  lay  down  a  precise  form  of  church 
government  ? 

174.  For  what  reasons  ? 

On  what  is  the  authority  of  a  church  establishment 

founded  ? 
What  three  things  are  necessary  to  a  national  religious 

establishment? 


v.  ii.,  B.  vi.]         PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  81 

175.  How  does  Paley  make  it  appear  that  a  learned  clergy- 

is  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  Christianity  in  a 
country  ? 

176.  Are  the  English  clergy  all  learned  ? 
Is  it  necessary  for  them  to  be  so  ? 

Is  it  necessary  that  some  of  them  should  be  learned 

and  industrious  ? 
Does  he,  therefore,  infer  that  the  clergy  should  be  a 

distinct  order  of  men  ? 

177.  Does  the  existence  of  the  sect  called  Quakers,  with- 

out a  clergy,  disprove  this  ? 

If  the  clergy  be  kept  distinct,  should  they  be  support- 
ed by  the  other  orders  ?  N 

Why  not  by  their  voluntary  contributions  ? 

178.  What  would  be  the  effect  of  this  mode  of  support  on 

the  preachers  themselves  ? 

179.  Supposing  a  legal  provision  for  the  clergy  to  be  neces- 

sary, what  is  the  next  question  ? 

180.  What  other  question  does  this  involve  ? 
Why  is  subscription  necessary  ? 

181.  Is  a  legal  establishment  of  one  particular  religion  a 

necessary  consequence  of  private  patronage,  or  the 
giving  of  ecclesiastical  preferments  ? 

What  would  result  from  allowing  the  parish  to  choose  ? 

What  is  the  plan  pursued  in  this  country  ?  [it  ? 

182.  What  inconveniences  does  Paley  suppose  must  attend 
State  the  argument  for  an  ecclesiastical  establishment. 

183.  Is  a  test  necessary  ? 

Are  there  too  many  such  tests  ? 
What  is  the  consequence  of  this  ? 

184.  What  are  articles  of  peace  ? 

What  are  the  advantages  of  having  a  distinction  of 
.  orders  in  the  ministry  ? 

185.  How  does  Paley  endeavour  to  prove  that  the  civil  mag- 

istrate has  a  right  to  interfere  in  matters  of  religion  ? 

186.  Is  the  right  of  tne  magistrate  to  ordain,  and  that  of 

the  subject  to  obey,  different  ? 
Does  this  often  occur  in  civil  matters  ? 

187.  Is  the  magistrate  always  to  be  obeyed  in  spirituals  ? 
What  alarming  consequence  is  deduced  from  the  law- 
fulness of  the  magistrate's  interference  ? 

188.  How  does  Paley  endeavour  to  refute  it  ? 

190.  Does  Paley  suppose  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  magis- 

trate to  provide  for  teaching  his  own  or  the  people's 
religion  ? 

191.  What  are  the  two  kinds  of  toleration  ? 

How  is  the  subject's  right  to  the  first  kind  proved  ? 

192.  What  other  auxiliary  considerations  prove  the  justice 

and  expediency  of  toleration  ? 


32  QUESTIONS  ON  [V.  II.,  B.  VI. 

What  degree  of  toleration  is  to  be  extended  to  books  ? 

193.  What  considerations  are  urged  against  a  complete  tol- 

eration of  dissenters  ? 

194.  In  what   two   cases  may  test-laws  be  applied  with 

propriety  ? 

195.  Why  may  not  the  test  be  directed  against  political 

principles  ? 

196.  How  should  every  interference  of  the  civil  govern- 

ment, in  matters  of  religion,  be  tried  ? 

CHAPTER  XL 

197.  What  is  the  final  view  of  all  politics  ? 

Of  what  does  the  happiness  of  a  people  consist  ? 
Is  happiness,  on  the  whole,  cojnmensurate  with  popu- 
lation V 

198.  What  follows  from  these  principles  ? 

Is  the  importance  of  population  a  first  principle  in 
political  economy  ? 

199.  What  is  one  of  the  first  hinderances  to  the  increase  of 

population  ? 

How  much  migh't  the  produce  of  the  land,  in  Eng- 
land, be  increased  ? 

200.  What  is  the  fundamental  proposition  respecting  pop- 

ulation ? 

201.  What  provision  is  necessary  to  the  increase  of  the 

people  ? 

202.  What    three  causes  regulate  the  procuring  of  the 

means  of  subsistence  ? 
How  do  people  subsist  in  China  ?    In  Hindostan  ? 

203.  Would  the  general  use  of  meat  diminish  their  num- 
What  makes  Ireland  populous  ?  [bers  ? 
How  does  luxury  assist  population  ? 

How  does  it  hinder  population  ? 

204.  (1.)  Which  are  the  most  innocent  kinds  of  luxury  ? 

205.  (2.)  Why  is  the  diffusion,  rather  than  the  degree  of 

luxury  to  be  dreaded  V 

(3.)  What  is  the  condition  most  favorable  to  popula- 
tion ? 

Give  a  history  of  the  modes  of  subsistence  used  in 
different  states  of  society.  In  the  savage  state. 

206.  In  the  next  stage  of  advancement. 
What  was  the  last  improvement  ? 

What  has  recently  hindered  population  in  England  ? 
Should  tillage  be  more  encouraged  than  pasturage  ? 

207.  Upon  what  circumstances  does  the  quantity  of  pro- 

vision depend  ?  [try  ? 

Why  is  an  indigent  tenantry  a  misfortune  to  a  coun- 
What  is  the  true  reward  of  industry  ? 
What  is  the  most  important  right  of  the  occupier  ? 


V.  ii.,  B.  vi.  J         PALEY'S  PHILOSOPHY.  33 

Who  is  properly  the  occupier  ? 

208.  How  may  the  proprietor  be  considered  the  occupier  ? 
What  inconvenience  arises  from  the  absence  of  the 

proprietor  ? 

How  can  it  be  obviated  ? 
Why  is  the  distribution  of  provision  important  to  the 

increase  of  population  ?  [plain  this. 

209.  What  are  the  only  equivalents  for  provision  ?    Ex- 
On  what  does  the  sale  of  provision  depend  ? 

210.  How  does  employment  affect  population  directly  ? 

Indirectly  ? 

What  public  benefit  is  founded  on  this  ? 

What  proportion  of  the  tradesmen  of  Europe  are  em- 
ployed on  unnecessary  articles  ?     Give  examples. 

211.  Is  it  directly  apparent  how  they  favour  population  ? 
Will  the  soil  maintain  more  than  it  can  employ  ? 

212.  What  would  be  the  effect  of  having  no  employment 

for  those  not  engaged  in  agriculture  ? 
What  must  these  persons  do  ? 
WThat  is  the  business  of  one  half  of  mankind  ? 
How  is  human  labour  divided  ? 

213.  Are  both  equally  necessary  ?    Illustrate  this. 
Illustrate  the  origin  and  advantage  of  foreign  com- 
merce. 

214.  Is  trade  necessary  for  the  encouragement  of  agricul- 

ture ?     Illustrate  this. 

What  is  the  immediate  source  of  human  provision  ? 
How  is  the  comparative  utility  of  different  branches 

of  national  commerce  to  be  estimated  ? 
What  is  first  in  this  scale  ? 

215.  The  second  ?     The  last  ? 

What  branches  of  manufacture  are  most  beneficial  ? 

216.  Does  the  reasoning  concerning  provision   apply  to 

those  countries  who  import  it  ?     Illustrate  this. 

217.  (1.)  In   what  cases  is  emigration  no  sign  of  political 

decay  ? 

What  are  the  usual  causes  of  emigration  ? 
(2.)  How  does  Paley  consider  colonization  ? 

218.  Describe  the  state  of  a  colony  prosperous  in  itself  and 

beneficial  to  the  parent  country. 

219.  What  is  the  error  of  the  English  with  respect  to  their 

colonies  ?         ^ 

(3.)  Js  abundance  of  money  favourable  to  population  ? 
How  does  money  flow  into  a  country  ?    How  is  it  re~ 

tained  ?     What  is  the  consequence  ? 
1^,  money  or  employment  the  cause  of  population  ? 

220.  What  treasures  evince  no  national  prosperity,  and  af- 

ford no  conclusion  concerning  the.  state  of  popula- 
tion ? 


Aiowmay  money  become  a  cause 'of  population  ? 
How  is  money  first  employed  on  being  received  into 

a  country  ? 

How  does  it  come  to  market  for  provision  ? 
Where  will  its  effects  be  felt  first  ? 

221.  When  does  its  effect  cease  ? 

Which  produces  the  effect,  the  accession  or  the  quan- 
tity of  money  ? 

What  is  the  effect  of  a  diminution  of  money  ? 

What  is  the  balance  of  trade  ? 

(4.)  Are  taxes  necessarily  prejudicial  to  population  ? 
Why  not  ? 

222.  How  may  a  tax  become  injurious  ?     Give  examples. 
What  taxes  are  beneficial  ? 

223.  Is  the  tendency  of  taxes,  in  most  instances,  noxious  ? 

Illustrate  this. 
How  does  a  new  tax  operate  ? 

224.  How  is  the  proportion  between  the  supply  and  expense 

of  substance,  disturbed  by  taxation,  to  be  restored  V 
How  is  the  produce  of  taxe's  usually  expended  ? 

225.  How  should  taxes  be  contrived  ? 

How  should  they  be  balanced  and  equalized  ? 

226.  What  sorts  of  persons  should  have  certain  exemptions? 
(5.)  Does  the  exportation  of  bread-corn  appear  to  be 

injurious  to  population  ? 
In  what  case  may  it  be  exported  ? 

227.  In  what  other  situation  may  it  be  exported  ? 

(6.)  How  do  contrivances  for  abridging  labour  com- 
pensate for  the  diminution  of  employment,  which 
is  their  immediate  effect  ? 

229.  How  can  laws  encourage  population  ? 

Is  the  attempt  to  force  "trade  of  any  use  ? 

230.  Is  the  encouragement  of  agriculture  a  proper  subject 

of  legislation  ? 

What  rules  are  to  be  observed  ? 
Is  it  material  in  whose  hands  the  fee  of  real  estate  is 

vested  ?  [ity  ? 

What  conditions  of  tenure  condemn  the  land  to  steril- 

231.  How  should  the  power  of  the  owner  be  increased  ? 
What  is  the  effect  of  tithes  ? 

232.  How  should  tithes  be  commutfi^  >* 

CHAPTER  XII.  \^ 

233.  Is  the  profession  of  a  soldier  forbidden  in  Scripture  ? 
What  said  John  the  Baptist  to  the  soldiers  ? 

What  difficulty  arises  in  considering  the  affairs^f  na- 
tions ? ,  Exemplify  this.  *\ 

234.  Can  m^bptttostptjy  sofcre-  these  doubts  ?  Why  not  ? 
What  would  be  the  effect  ofTelaxing  a  rule  ? 


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